Halfway to Nowhere
by sammygrrl00
Summary: Ok, so this is an OC story about a girl, around thirteen, who crashed on the island with 815. She has some connections with some you wouldn't expect. I'm going to do the whole series!Rated T for swearing. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1 Airplanes

**I'm sorry I kind of fell off the map with this story, but i got sidetracked with school and other stuff! I decided to revamp this story! If you read it before, you're going to want to read it again. Thanks to everyone who reviewes!**

Chapter One

_Airplanes_

I sat in my blue plastic chair, swinging my legs back and forth. I had always hated waiting. I suppose I was immature in that way. I glanced at the clock nearly every five minutes in an anxious worry. I heard someone grunt and jumped a mile out of my seat. I get jumpy when I'm worried.

"For god sakes, Rebecca, sit still" demanded Mrs. Peters, checking her watch. I bowed my head in guilt. I knew I should've been calmer, but I was anxious. Worriedly, I watched the airplanes go down the runway and take off into flight.

"How much longer?" I sighed.

"Soon" replied Mrs. Peters.

"Ok, but how many minutes?"

"I don't know, Rebecca"

I huffed and picked at the sole of my shoe where the rubber was coming off. I was being dumb and I knew it. I was thirteen for Christ's sake. It wasn't even my first time flying. It just made me nervous, I mean, what the hell was holding you up anyway? Air? Oh yeah, that sounds safe. I glanced around me. All the people seemed to be fine and not worried at all.

"Flight 815 to LAX now boarding" called a voice over the loudspeaker.

"That's us" said Mrs. Peters getting up. I followed her to the line at the terminal. We stood in line and gave the attendant our tickets. I sat down in the window seat, my stomach in knots. A women's voice came over the loudspeaker in the plane telling us all of the warnings and emergency procedures. She wasn't exactly helping my queasy stomach.

The roar of the plane started and we slanted upward. Slowly rising into the air, I closed my eyes. My heart was beating a mile a minute. Soon the plane leveled out and the seatbelt sign dinged off. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least now I could relax a little.

"Good morning folks, this is your captain speaking. We're going to have a nice and easy flight to Los Angeles. Our estimated time of arrival is around 10:30 this evening. Enjoy your flight with oceanic airlines" said the pilot cheerily.

I sighed and kept my head back against the seat and my eyes closed. "You're just going to love this new couple, they're great people" said Mrs. Peters.

"Yeah" I said dumbly. I mean how do you even respond to that? Oh good, I was worried you were giving me to a rapist?

"The mother is a stay at home mom and she is such a good cook. Oh, and they've always wanted a daughter." She went on. "If you don't mind me asking, why did you want to leave the boarding school?"

"Because it wasn't right for me there" I said annoyed. This was at least the millionth person to have asked me that in the last week.

We sat in silence for the next six hours. I watched a movie with the headset and got something to drink and went to the bathroom. The rest of the time I only sat there bored out of my mind. Eventually, Mrs. Peters got up. "I need to use the restroom" she stated. "Will you be alright by yourself?" I nodded in response. Of course I would be fine. What was going to happen while she was gone?

She left and I found myself alone. A young kid was staring at me from across the aisle. He was probably a few years younger than me. He had a vacant expression on his face. I waved at him with a friendly smile plastered on my face. He waved back.

I moved over a seat so we could talk. "Hi, I'm Becca" I said introducing myself.

"I'm Walt" he said. "Why are you going to Los Angeles?"

"I'm going there to meet my new foster parents" I sighed. "How 'bout you?"

"I'm going there to live with my father. My mother died two weeks ago." He said sadly.

"I'm sorry" I replied. "My mother died five years ago, so I sort of know how you feel"

"I'm sorry" he smiled. "Guess I'm in the club now, right?"

"Yeah" I laughed holding out my hand. "Here's your official entrance"

Mrs. Peters came back to sit down so I scooted back over to my seat by the window. I stared out the window thinking deeply about nothing in particular. Suddenly, I found a question on the tip of my tongue. I turned to Mrs. Peters. "Can I ask you something?" I asked.

"Sure, anything" she responded, smiling. She seemed glad that I wanted to talk to her again.

"What's my father's name?" I inquired.

She frowned slightly, giving me a sympathetic look. I stared at her waiting for the answer. She sighed and reached under her seat for her briefcase. She pulled out an orange folder with my name on the little side tab. Flipping a few pages, she stopped and pulled one out. "It's against regulations to share private information about an individual until they are eighteen and can make an informed decision, but – "

We hit a patch of turbulence. I gasped and leaned back in my seat. "Attention all riders, we are experiencing some turbulence. The pilot has turned on the seatbelt sign. Please stay in your seats until the light turns off. Thank you" said a kind women's voice.

"You can relax, Rebecca. It's only turbulence" said Mrs. Peters putting her hand on my shoulder. I let out a sigh of relief.

"You can go on now" I said opening my eyes.

"Ok, His name is J - "

The roar of more turbulence hit and I gripped my seat. This time however it didn't stop. A siren started to sound and yellow oxygen masks fell from the ceiling. I put mine on fast and closed my eyes, holding my armrest as tight as I could. The plane reared downwards as everything crashed around me. Luggage fell from the cubbies and the siren was blaring in my head. A loud _crunch _made me turn around to see the back part of the plane gone. It had split in midair. I breathed heavier as the plane neared the ground at an alarming rate.

Suddenly all went black as I tried to brace myself for impact with the ground. I passed out moments before we hit.

I woke up with sand in my hair and blood in my mouth. I coughed and spit bloody saliva into the sand. I lifted myself off the ground, trying to stop my head from spinning. My head throbbed in pain and it hurt to keep my eyes open. I fell to my knees again and held my head in my hands. I let go after about a minute and looked up to finally see all the chaos around me. People were running back and forth, screaming out the names of their loved ones. Others were trying to get away from the wreckage. Some were crying over dead bodies. I didn't want to look over there. I hobbled away from the scraps of the plane and towards the other part of the beach. I wanted to get out of the way.

I stood up again and felt my head spin. I doubled over on the ground and thought I was going to hurl. I stayed that way for a few minutes. Fire burned nearby and I could smell the burning of flesh. A young woman in a pink Jacket was screaming wildly. I couldn't even make out what she was saying. I watched as a man stumbled in front of one of the big jets. A bald man yelled at him to get out of the way, but he didn't listen. He was sucked into the jet and exploded. I screamed bloody murder.

An Arab man came and helped me up. "Are you alright?" he asked. I just survived a plane crash and this man wanted to know if I was alright? Yeah, I was just fine and dandy. I only nodded, with my teeth clenched. "You're bleeding" he mused, looking at my head. I looked at the blood at my fingers. "Can you speak?" he asked.

I nodded again, before realizing how stupid that was. "No, yeah" I said, "Yes, I can talk"

"Good" he replied handing me a piece of cloth. I swore and held it to my forehead. "Let me help you" he commanded. He gently pressed it to my head and wiped away the blood. "We need to move you" he said. "Can you walk?"

I replied with a nod, getting on all fours. I attempted to stand and fell miserably to the sand. "No" I said, as another wave of dizziness came over me.

"Here," he said, lifting me off the ground. He carried me with ease, and I couldn't help but lean into him a little. He smelled good. "Alright" he said, putting me down. "Stay over here away from the wreckage" He looked over to the wreckage. "What is your name?" he asked.

"Becca" I said, wiping more blood away. I felt like I wanted to cry.

"Becca," he repeated. "I'm Sayid. Will you be alright by yourself?" he asked me.

"Yeah" I smiled, feeling the blood slow. "I think so. Thank you" He nodded and walked away to help others. I held the cloth to my forehead, every so often checking it to see if I was still bleeding. It seemed to be slowing a lot. I sighed and wanted to cry as I stared at the bloody, horrific scene in front of me. People screamed for help, and I felt useless. I watched to see if Mrs. Peters was going to come out of the wreckage. I didn't think she was dead. I mean she was sitting right next to me, so she should be alive too right?

Something was telling me I was wrong. Pictures of her lying there dead filled my mind. I could see Mrs. Peters lying there decapitated and bloody. Maybe she was dying as we spoke. Maybe she was thrown from the plane and is lost in the jungle. I found her down the beach and no mental picture could have prepared me for what I saw.

A crumpled mess of flesh lay in the blood stained sand. I couldn't even tell where the blood was coming from. Her limbs were twisted into disgusting positions. I could almost feel the color drain out of my face. I sat down in the sand next to her body, unmoving. A horrible decaying smell was growing already. I looked into her glossy eyes. They were dead.

I felt tears brimming in my eyes, but none came out. The sand fleas bit at my legs and the sun beat down on my back. I was hot and sweaty, but it no longer mattered. Nothing did. The sun moved across the sky, slowly setting in the west. It was growing dark.

Hours before, everyone had sort of calmed down. There was still a bloody mess everywhere, but many bodies that were unclaimed were tossed into the fuselage that was still intact. No one came for Mrs. Peters. Probably because I was sitting here, staring at it. I kept staring at the body, wishing I could have heard the words of my father's name move across her lips. I never found out what it was.

I had no one now. I was truly alone on the island. I hoped that the stupid rescue team would come soon so I would be able to get to my stupid new foster home and forget about Mrs. Peters. I couldn't get the mental image out of my head. She was always there, staring at me with her cold eyes. I shuddered inwardly.

_I laughed and put an apple on the table. "Good morning" I said, sitting down. "What's up?"_

"_I'm googling Paul McCartney" he said. _

"_Why?" I laughed._

"_Long story" he said waving me off. A man in a suit came up to me._

"_Good Morning, Rebecca" he said cordially. "Don't forget about our appointment this afternoon"_

_I nodded and he left. "You still have to go to those?" Jay asked._

"_Yeah"_

"_I thought you said you were better" he accused._

"_I did" I said. "Because I am"_

"_If you're better, why do you still have to go?"_

"_Just a precaution" I said, getting up to leave. "See ya later"_

People were talking behind me. "Is she okay?" said one.

"I dunno" replied the other in a British accent. "Oy, you alright?" he called. I didn't answer. "Go get Jack" he said. "I see blood"

"You okay?" asked a male voice coming up next to me. I didn't answer, hoping he would go away. I couldn't talk. If I did, I was sure I would start crying, if not sobbing. He sat down next to me. I ignored his presence at my side and only looked ahead of me without really seeing anything. He put his hand on my shoulder. "What's your name?" he asked.

I looked at his hand, not exactly knowing what to do. "Um…it's Rebecca. Becca Gallagher.

"Hi Becca, I'm Jack" He said. "I happened to notice that you were over here all alone and that your head was still bleeding. You mind if I look at it?" I shook my head and turned towards him so that he could see my forehead better. "You're going to need stitches" He said cupping my chin in his hand. I shuddered slightly, but let him clean the wound and stitch it up. It hurt, but I really couldn't wince or it would hurt even more.

"Alright, you're good" he smiled letting go.

"Thanks" I replied.

"Was she your mother?" he asked nodding his head towards Mrs. Peters. I looked at her.

"No" I said simply, but nothing more.

"So you're alone here?"

"Yeah" I sighed, the feeling of actually saying it making me feel even worse. I still stared at the body.

"Oh" he said. There was another moment of awkward silence. "Why don't you come over by one of the fires?"

I looked at the body. "Ok" I said letting him help me up from the ground. There were five or six fires burning around the beach and people were gathered at every single one of them. Jack led me to the one farthest to the left, away from most of the bodies. He sat down with a girl with freckles and long dark hair. She grinned slightly at me. I nodded a hello and sat down next to Jack. I was silent as Jack and the other girl talked.

"We must have been at about 40,000 feet when it happened" Jack mused. He had made an airplane out of a leaf. "Hit an air pocket. Dropped, maybe, 200 feet" He moved the plane to demonstrate. "The turbulence was … I blacked out"

"I didn't. I saw the whole thing" The girl said softly. "I knew that the tail was gone, but I couldn't bring myself to look back. And then the, the front of the plane broke off"

Jack shook his head. "Well, it's not here on the beach. Neither is the tail. We need to figure out which way we came in"

"Why?" she asked.

"Because there's a chance we could find the cockpit" Jack explained. "If it's intact, we might be able to find a transceiver. Send out a signal, help the rescue party find us"

"How do you know all that?" Kate asked, impressed.

Jack shrugged. "Took a couple flying lessons. Wasn't for me"

There was a moment of silence. "I saw some smoke" She said. "Just through the valley. If you're thinking about going for the cockpit, I'm going with you"

Jack shook his head and smiled. "I don't know your name"

"I'm Kate" She smiled.

"Jack" he replied. He turned to look at me. "This is Becca"

At the sound of my name I jumped a little. I looked at Kate and smiled. "Hi" I said nodding.

Kate looked at Jack, slightly embarrassed. "Is she your—"

"No" I said, cutting her off. "I-I'm alone" I said.

"Not anymore" Jack smiled. "We have to band together until the rescue boats come. We don't want any accidents"

A loud booming noise came out of the jungle. I jumped up and stared towards the sound. Loud metallic noises were echoing through the trees. Leaves rustled. The trees shook and fell as something moved through them. Soon the whole camp was up and staring at the jungle. Jack and Kate moved towards the noises, so I followed, right behind. A voice not too far away from me said, "Terrific"

I did not sleep at all that night.


	2. Chapter 2 Healing

Chapter Two

_Healing_

I woke up the next morning and went to find my luggage. I had to search through piles of suitcases that were stacked high close to over where the dead bodies were scattered. I held my breath as I walked past the bodies and tore through the luggage like there was no tomorrow. I wanted to get away from there as fast as I possibly could. I found my navy blue suitcase fairly quickly and ran away from the dead.

I went back to where I had slept the night before and placed my suitcase there. I changed my shirt into something lighter since it was going to get hot. Then I felt relatively clean. Jack was off doing something. I didn't want to bug him, so I sat down next to a bunch of people whose names I wasn't too sure about. But, since I saw Walt there, and Sayid and I knew them, I felt okay about it. Walt's dad's name was Michael. Sayid sat with us too. Then there was the screaming girl who wore the pink Jacket, Shannon and her brother Boone. They were very different, though. Shannon was tall and blonde while Boone had dark hair and was shorter than her. I had a feeling that they weren't actually related.

The last person was a British guy named Charlie. He had big ears and a really cool accent. I was surprised at all the people here that were gathered together. They started talking about the weird event of last night. "Whatever it was, it wasn't natural" said Michael, waving his hands in the air.

""Does anyone have any sun block?" Charlie asked way off topic, he poked himself in the arm. Shannon tossed hers over. A very big man with a head full of curly hair came over from the direction of the fuselage, looking disgusted.

"I was just looking inside the fuselage. It's pretty grim in there. Do you think we should do something about the – "he looked at me and Walt. "B-O-D-Y-S"

"What are you spelling, man?" asked Michael. "Bodies?"

"B-O-D-I-E-S" spelled Walt, not even looking up.

"Sounds like a good idea" said Sayid thinking.

"No," replied Shannon with disgust. "Let the rescue team deal with it when they get here." She wrinkled her nose.

Jack walked up to our group. "We're going to go out and look for the cockpit, see if we can find a transceiver to send a distress signal to help the rescue team." He said. He gave Boone directions on the wounded and went to walk away.

"I'll come with you" stated Charlie. "I want to help." He brushed the sand off his pants.

"I don't really need any help" said Jack, brushing him off.

"No, it's cool. I really don't feel like standing still" Charlie said still following. Jack nodded. "Excellent"

I went back to my stuff, suddenly exhausted. I hadn't slept at all after we heard the noises in the jungle. Who could sleep after that? I didn't dream at all like I usually did. I woke up later to hear screaming all around me. I crawled out from under the wreckage I was sleeping under and went to see what all the commotion was. There was a large circle of people all around two people. Sayid and some blonde guy I hadn't met yet. I must've been asleep for longer than I had thought since Jack was already back from his trek.

"Break it up!" yelled Jack coming into the middle of the circle.

"Tell everyone what you told me" yelled Sayid. They were pulled away from each other. "Tell them that I crashed the plane. Go on tell them-"

"The shoe fits buddy" yelled the other one. He was strong, you could tell from how he was struggling against the guys holding him back. He was pissed. They yelled back in forth so much that you could hardly tell what they were even saying. Michael came forward with a pair of handcuffs he said were found in the jungle. The man didn't care very much. "This guy was sitting in the back row of business class the whole flight; never got up. And for some reason, just pointing this out, the guy next to him didn't make it." The man said angrily

"Thank you so much for observing my behavior" Sayid stated sarcastically.

"You don't think I saw them pull you out of line before we boarded?" the man asked. Sayid struggled against the men holding him. The other man laughed. "Bring it"

"Stop, Sawyer" yelled Kate, the woman I met the other day. She went with Jack on the search for the cockpit. "We found the transceiver, but it's not working. Can anybody help?"

"Yes, I might be able to" Sayid panted, trying to catch his breath.

"Oh great, let's trust this guy" interjected Sawyer.

"Hey we're all in this together, man. Let's treat each other with a little respect" Hurley replied.

"Shut up, Lardo" Sawyer sneered.

"Hey give it a break" Jack called.

Sawyer grimaced. "Whatever you say doc, you're the hero."

"You guys found the cockpit?" Boone asked stepping towards Jack. "Any survivors?" Jack shook his head sadly. "Becca, Come here for a minute"

"Yeah?" I asked expectantly.

"I don't want you to go playing in the jungle alone or anything ok?" he said

"Why?"

"Just promise"

I nodded. He nodded and smiled then walked off.

I went to see how Sayid was doing with the transceiver. I was praying that he would at least have some luck. I wanted off this damn island. This had to work. I couldn't be stuck here forever. I watched him fiddle with some of the wires in the back of the thing. "Damn" he swore, then looked at me. "Sorry. It's just not going so well so far. I can't reconnect the wires without it short- circuiting. I need extra wires or a chip or something." He said putting it down and looking at me. "I need a cell phone or a-"

I reached into my pocket, smiled, and handed him mine.

"Yes, thank you" he smiled. He put it on the table he was using any hit it as hard as he could with a stick.

I winced. "That was a new phone"

He smiled. "If this works, I'll buy you a new one" Hurley, the big guy from before, walked up and sat down next to me.

"Tsss. Chain-smoking Jackass…" he sighed.

"Some people have problems" Sayid said, taking a quick glance at where Sawyer was sitting.

"Some people have problems? Us. Him." He shook his head. "You're okay. I like you"

"You're okay, too" Sayid smiled.

"Hurley" he said, reaching to shake hands with Sayid. Sayid had his hands on the receiver. Hurley put his down, but Sayid saw and stopped.

"Sayid" He said, shaking his hand.

"Hey" he smiled at me.

"Hey" I said, returning the smile. "I'm Becca"

"Hurley" he nodded. He turned back to Sayid. "How do you know to do all that?"

"I was a military communications officer" he replied.

"Oh yeah? You ever see battle?" Hurley asked.

"I fought in the Gulf War" Sayid said, now looking a little uneasy.

"No way! I got a buddy who fought over there. He was in the 104th airborne. What were you - Air Force … Army?"

Sayid sighed. "The Republican Guard"

Hurley was silent for a second. "Oh" he said. "Do you need anything?" he asked quickly. "I'm just gonna—"

"No" Sayid sighed. Hurley nodded and walked off. I looked at Sayid. "If you want to leave-"

"Why would I want to do that?" I asked, watching him with the transceiver.

"For the same reason Hurley just did" he said slowly, as though I was stupid.

"You mean because of the Republican Guard thing?" I asked. "No"

"Why not?" he asked, now looking at me.

I smiled. "Because I don't even know what that means"

He chuckled and smiled at me. "How old are you?"

"Thirteen" I responded. "I was born when the Gulf War was happening"

"Well then you wouldn't know would you" he thought aloud. "Why don't you go find Jack" he said suddenly. "I need to concentrate"

I nodded, and walked off, trying to find Jack. He was leaning over some guy with a piece of the plane sticking out of him.

He sighed. "Hey Becca, hand me that towel?"

I did so, watching him clear the blood. Kate came up behind me. "How is he? Can you do anything?" she asked.

"Pull out the shrapnel" Jack said.

"But you said yesterday that if you took it out…" Kate said helplessly.

"I know. But that was yesterday." He said. "I was hoping he'd be at a hospital by now. If I leave him like this, he'll be dead within a day. If I open him up … if I can control the bleeding and if he doesn't go into sepsis and if I can find some antibiotics … he might be all right"

Kate stared at the man for a second. "I'm going on a hike" she said.

Jack looked confused. "Sorry?"

"Sayid fixed the transceiver, but we can't use it" she said. "Not from here"

"Kate, wait a minute" Jack said.

"You're the one who said that we had to send out a signal" she sighed frustrated.

"Look, you saw…" he looked at me. "You saw what that thing did to the pilot" he whispered.

"Yeah, I did" Kate admonished. "What makes you think we're any safer here than we are in the jungle?"

"Wait for me. I don't know how long this will be …" Jack said. He looked at the man.

"Sayid said the batteries won't last" Kate said slowly.

Jack sighed. "All right. If you see, or hear, anything …" he stressed. "_Anything_. Run."

I sat down next to Jack, staring at him a little confused. "We found the cockpit and the pilot he was – he was alive" Jack said, noticing my face. "But then he got –mulled by something; something big." He paused. "He…died. We found him with his flesh completely torn apart in a tree." He said with a disgusted look on his face. He seemed to be picturing it in his head. I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

"Sorry," he laughed slightly. " I gotta get this out" he sighed. "Do you get squeamish around blood?" he asked. I thought for a second. I shook my head. "Wanna help?"

We gathered supplies like water, towels, strips, gauze, basically anything we could think of. Hurley was helping out too. We laid him flat on the sand, and Hurley was by his head.

"You sure he's out?" Hurley asked, looking at the man uneasily.

Jack nodded. "He's out"

"How do you know he won't wake up when you yank that thing out?" Hurley asked.

Jack shrugged. "I don't"

"Hey, guy, are you awake?" Hurley called into his face. He got no reaction. "Yo, there's a rescue plane! We're saved! Yaaay!" The man still didn't move. "Yeah, he's out. So—what do you want me…"

"Look, it's unlikely that he'll regain consciousness "Jack said. "But the pain might bring him around. And if it does, I need you to hold him down"

"Uh … I'm not so good around blood, man" Hurley looked squeamish.

Jack looked at me, then back at Hurley. "Then don't look."

"Yeah. But … I'm not so good around blood" he repeated.

"Just do the best you can. Okay?" he said. He looked at both of us now. "Don't look"

"Okay" Hurley said.

"Becca, move that way, so you can hand me towels" Jack instructed. I did so. He pulled the shrapnel out, and blood started pouring.

"Dude" Hurley grimaced.

"Hand me those strips" Jack asked Hurley.

"Dude" Hurley repeated, not moving.

"Just hand me the strips, I need to get this bleeding stopped" he said.

Hurley winced and wrinkled his nose. "I don't think I can"

I tried not to look at the wound. "Oh" Jack sighed. I looked, more blood was pouring out, and I thought I saw some guts or something. I looked away.

""Oh" what?" Hurley asked. "What, what's going on, something in there?" He looked down.

"The strips, just hand me the strips" Jack asked again. "Give it to me" Hurley looked sick. "Don't even think about it, Hurley. Don't even think a … Hurley! Hey!" Hurley passed out on top of the man. "Damn it!"

I looked to Jack for instruction. "Gimme the strips and then move Hurley if you can" Jack said. I stood up and tossed him the strips. Then I sort of rolled Hurley out of the way and moved back to Jack.

"Do you think you can hold this?" he asked, motioning at where his hands were.

I kneeled down and stared at the blood before I put my hands on the wound. I tried my best to not push too hard, but not let anymore blood pour out either. Jack grabbed a needle and some thread and went to work. By the time he was done, I was shaking. I had been so scared. Jack leaned back and sighed. "You can let go now" he told me.

I hesitated, but let go. He laughed and patted me on the back. "Okay" he smiled. I just sighed and closed my eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked. I nodded. "You don't say much do you?"

I smiled, and shook my head. We cleaned up and I changed my blood soaked shirt. I still had on a skirt though, I realized. I glanced around. I grabbed my new clothes and made my way to a more secluded spot on the beach. I undressed slowly, and left my bra and panties on. I didn't want to be caught naked. I dived into the water, letting it run over me. It was really cold, but at this point, I didn't really mind. It even felt nice really.

I rinsed my hair and just sort of waded for awhile. When I felt clean, I went back to shore and just stood, drying in the sun. I dressed in jeans and green t-shirt that hugged some non-existent curves. I went back to Jack and saw him with the man still. "How is he?" I asked.

"Alright" he said. The man suddenly woke up. "No" Jack chided, pushing him back down. If he moved too much he could rip his stitches.

"Where is she?" the man asked, ignoring Jack's protests.

Jack looked confused. "Who?" Then the man collapsed and went back into lala land.

I looked to Jack. I gave him a confused look.

"He has a fever" he remarked. "Probably hallucinating"

I sat down and so did Jack. We just stared at the ocean for awhile.

The man inside the tent moved around. "Don't trust her. She's dangerous" he mumbled. He was trying to move again.

"Hold still" Jack said, holding him down.

"No, she's dangerous" he fought. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards him.

"Don't let her near you" he grumbled, looking right at me. "She'll kill you"

I gasped, and tried to pull away. He was strong for a guy who had shrapnel hanging out of his stomach a few seconds ago. He fell asleep again and I was able to slip my hand out of his fist. I rubbed my hurt hand. My heart was still beating a mile a minute. I calmed down and looked at Jack. "I'm okay" I said softly.

"Yeah" he said, staring at me. "Why don't you go get some water?"

"Okay" I said, still holding my wrist and walking off. I took a long gulp of water and walked around for about a twenty minutes before I went back. I needed some air. By the time I got back, he was up again.

"You should try not to move, man" Jack coaxed.

"Have to find her" he mumbled. "Have to bring her back" He tried to sit up again, but Jack just kept shoving him back down.

"Yeah, you keep saying that" Jack sighed, frustrated. "And every time I ask you who you have to bring back you pass out on me again. Since your fever's running pretty high, I'm guessing you have no idea who you're talking about." I smiled and handed him some water.

"My cuffs, my handcuffs" he said softly. "Where are my cuffs?"

"What?" Jack asked, looking to me, confused. I shrugged.

"My Jacket pocket" he said.

Jack shook his head. "I don't …"

The man pointed at his coat nearby. "Jacket pocket" he insisted.

"Okay" Jack said, trying to calm him down. He went to the coat and got out a folded piece of paper.

"Dangerous" he choked out. "She's dangerous" he said.

Jack looked down at the paper. His eyebrows shot up and I could tell it was someone he knew. I leaned over to see who it was. It took me a minute to figure out where I knew that face from. The face, with freckles and long dark hair, was Kate.


	3. Chapter 3 Hope

Chapter Three

_Hope_

"Was it a dinosaur?" Hurley asked that night. We were setting up the new infirmary we made out of plane parts. Jack had told him about the thing in the jungle.

Jack shook his head. "It wasn't a dinosaur"

"You say you didn't see it" Hurley argued.

"I didn't"

"So how do you know it wasn't a dinosaur?" he questioned.

Jack shook his head, and I could see him rolling his eyes. "Because dinosaurs are extinct" He remarked.

"Oh" Hurley stated. "Yeah" He looked down at the Marshal. "So what's his story? He looks kind of … dying"

"He's not going to die" Jack argued.

Hurley stared at him. "He's yellow, man"

"His wound is infected, but the antibiotics will fight it off" Jack countered.

"What if they don't?"

Jack kneeled down and looked at the man's eyes. "Then his body will shut down one piece at a time. His abdomen goes rigid, then …" He felt his abdomen, and trailed off. I had a feeling it had went rigid.

"He looks like he's in pain" Hurley spoke concerned.

Jack nodded, moving things around. I noticed that he did that a lot when he was nervous. "Yeah"

Hurley picked up the mug shot and started to unfold it. "What's this? Uh, dude?" Hurley stared at it in shock. Jack grabbed it out of his hands. I looked at my feet. "Uh … What do you think she did?" he asked.

"It's none of my business" Jack stated stoically.

"She looks pretty hard core" Hurley commented. I looked at the picture again. She did look like she could kick some ass.

"Hurley …" Jack sighed. He said it in a way that I knew he didn't want to talk about it anymore. He glared at us and then went back to what he was doing. I shrugged and sat down in the sand. Hurley disappeared for awhile after that. When he finally came back, he was running to the make shift shelter Jack had made.

"Dude, dude, they're back" he panted.

Sayid had people gathered all around him on the beach. Sayid quickly got control of the questions being shot at him. "As you and the others know, we hiked up the mountain in an attempt to help the rescue team locate us. The transceiver failed to pick up a signal. We weren't able to send out a call for help." I could hear the false note in his voice. "But we're not giving up. If we gather electronic equipment - your cell phones, laptops - I can boost the signal and we can try again, but that may take some time. So for now, we should begin rationing our remaining food. If it rains, we should set up tarps to collect water. I need to organize 3 separate groups. Each group should have a leader. One group for water - I'll organize that. Who's going to organize electronics? You? Rationing food? Okay. And I believe a third group should concern themselves with the construction of …"

I walked away and sat down near my stuff and took out the picture of me and my mom that I always kept with me. I stared at it, tracing the curve of her face with my hand. In this picture, we were happy. She wasn't doing anything and could smile and mean it. I felt a tear fall down my face.

I saw Hurley and Jack trying to carry seats. I went to help. Jack had me carry some airline seats.

"So what'd she say?" Hurley asked curiously.

"She didn't say anything" he said.

"But you told her you knew?"

Jack shook his head. "I don't know anything"

"Well, you kind of know she's in that mug shot. And that we found those handcuffs. And that guy keeps mumbling "she's dangerous, she's dangerous" over and over" Hurley remarked.

"It's not my business. Not my problem."

"Yeah, you're right" Hurley nodded. "We'll let Johnny Fever take care of her when he gets better"

Jack looked suddenly upset. "He's not getting better if we don't get some stronger antibiotics…"

"That stuff I got from the luggage …"

"It's for ear infections and foot fungus" he said.

Hurley was silent for a moment. "We went through everything, man"

"What about that luggage in the overhead compartments?" Jack asked.

"That's inside the plane"

Jack looked confused. "Yeah?"

Hurley looked uncomfortable. "But, the bodies are in there, and they're all … dead"

"Look, I'll handle it." Jack said. "Why don't you and Becca keep an eye on him …?"

"Great" Hurley said quickly. "Yeah - love to - on it" He motioned for me to follow. I went back to the infirmary tent. I helped him feed the marshal water and pureed food. After that, we pretty much sat in silence for awhile.

"Hey, watch him will you?" Hurley asked. "I gotta, like, go get more water" I nodded wordlessly and watched him run out of the tent.

"Hey, sorry" Kate said, walking right into Hurley. I think my heart dropped into my chest.

"I was going to get some more water" Hurley said, stupidly.

"We haven't met" Kate smiled. "I'm Kate."

"Hi, Kate" Hurley said. He was very tense. "Hurley"

"I was just looking for Jack and I thought he might be in there" she said looking at me.

"Yeah, no" Hurley stuttered. "Uh, he went to go get some medicine … over there"

Kate turned and looked to where Hurley was pointing. "Where? In the fuselage?" Hurley turned to me and pointed at her butt.

"Look" he pointed. I was confused, but stood up and looked. She had a gun sticking out of her pants.

"What? Yeah, in the uh, uh, you know?" Hurley said, realizing he had to respond. "I've got to get that water" And with that, he ran off, leaving me with a potential murderer.

"He's jumpy isn't he?" she laughed lightly. "Why is Jack in the fuselage?"

"Looking for Meds to help him" I nodded at the Marshal.

She nodded and walked off. I breathed a small sigh of relief. Hurley came back and I left the tent. I wanted to be alone for a minute. I think I deserved that after all the stiff I had been through in the past three days.

Jack came to me later. "hey" he smiled. "Where've you been?"

"Here" I said, motioning at the area I was sitting.

"Wanna come back?" he asked. "I could use some company" I smiled and followed him. We came upon the tent and heard a noise inside. I gave Jack a curious look. He went in the tent to see the marshal strangling Kate.

"Damn it" Jack screamed, trying to break them apart. "Damn it" The marshal started shaking violently. "Just breathe. Come on, come on, look, look at me, look" He slowly stopped and collapsed. Jack looked at Kate. "What did you do?"

"I was just checking to if he was …" she sputtered out. "He jumped on me. He grabbed me. Is he … okay?"

"He's not responding to antibiotics, he's bleeding internally, his fever's pushing 104. And his abdomen's rigid" Jack listed off. "He needs water"

Jack went to leave and Kate and I followed. It was raining. "So, what are you going to do about it?" Kate asked.

"About what?" Jack demanded, sounding annoyed.

"About him" She said, pointing behind her.

"I told you, he needs water" Jack said.

Kate stopped him. "Will he suffer?"

"What?" Jack asked, confused.

"Will it be quick?" she asked. I looked to Jack for an answer as well.

Jack seemed uncomfortable. "Becca, go get water" I hesitated, but left for water without argument. I came back holding two water bottles full. Kate stalked off and I handed the bottles to Jack.

"Becca" he said, pouring some into the marshal's mouth. "I don't want you to say anything to anyone about Kate"

"Ok" I nodded. "I won't." I heard a moan from inside the tent. "So, there's no hope for him?"

Jack gave me a small smile. "There's always hope Bex"

I walked away not wanting to hear that man moan anymore. It was making me sick. I didn't want to hear it ever again. I sat down and blocked my ears. We, as in Charlie, Hurley, the man Sayid fought with, Sawyer and I started to build a nice little campfire. I saw Hurley stand up and go to find Jack so I followed.Hurley and I went to find Jack and I wanted an update on the marshal. "Yo, so, where's the fugitive?" Hurley asked.

"In the tent" Jack said, nodding at where the marshal was.

"You let her in there alone?" he asked in shock.

"What's she going to do?" he asked. "She's 120 pounds soaking wet"

"Yeah, but she's got that gun" Hurley explained.

Jack jumped up. "What?"

"She's strapped, man" he replied. "I saw it in her… in her… in her… in her…" He didn't get to finish because Jack was up and running. I took a glance at Hurley and followed.

As we got there, Kate was walking out looking somber. "Kate?" Jack asked in shock.

A gunshot suddenly rang out from inside the infirmary. Kate looked up at Jack and then simply walked away. Sawyer came out of the infirmary and was holding the gun. I didn't move. I was in shock.

"What did you do?" Jack asked,

"What you couldn't" He said harshly. "Look, I get where you're coming from being a doctor and all, but he wanted it. Hell, he asked me. So, I don't like it any more than you do, but something had to be done"

A quick choked gasp came from inside the infirmary. I put a hand on my stomach. I thought I was going to be sick. "Oh, no way" Hurley sighed. "Guys?"

We all went inside, Hurley and I hanging back a little. "You shot him in the chest?" Jack asked.

"I was aiming for his heart" Sawyer explained.

"You missed" Jack sneered, trying to clean up the mess.

Hurley was looking away. "Man, is he still breathing?"

"You perforated his lung. It'll take hours to bleed out" Jack said.

Sawyer looked at a loss. "So what is—"he stopped. "I only had one bullet"

"Get out" Jack screamed. Sawyer got up and walked out. "Get out!" Hurley pulled me away from the opening of the tent and I simply just stood there. I saw Sawyer upset and throwing his cigarette out into the ocean "Why?" I asked Sawyer. He just walked right passed me, not even giving me a glance.

Jack walked out of the tent not two seconds later. The man stopped making noises. "Becca" he said softly, putting a hand on my shoulder. I hadn't realized I was crying until I reached up and felt my wet cheek. "Breathe" Jack instructed. My chest was heaving up and down. I let go, and felt it. I dashed to the brush and emptied my stomach.

I guess our hope was gone.


	4. Chapter 4 Wild Fire

Chapter Four

_Wild Fire_

Jack had led me to bed, right across from where he slept. "You need to get some rest" he instructed. I nodded, lying down. I wasn't sure if I was going to sleep at all that night.

"Woof, Woof" went Vincent the dog. I opened my eyes to see Walt running past me with the dog on a leash. I guess I could sleep.

"Walt, shut him up" I whispered. A loud rummaging sound came from the plane. I glanced around, but it was too dark and I couldn't see anything.

"What is it?" asked Kate rubbing her eyes.

"Somebody's in there" Claire said in horror.

"Everyone in there is dead" Sayid stated.

"Sawyer" Jack accused.

"Right behind you Jackass" Sawyer sneered. He was still upset from shooting the marshal. "Jack?" asked Kate frightened.

Sawyer took a step towards the plane. "I'm gonna shed some light on this thing" he took a few more steps. An animal turned around to see him. Sawyer gasped in shock.

"Run!" yelled Jack turning away. Everyone turned running to get out of the way of the charging animal.

"Oh crud, what now?" asked Hurley. I ran past him, tripping on a piece of shrapnel. I went down on my face, tearing open the gash on my head. Hurley helped me up.

"They're gone" Sayid panted, out of breath.

"What the bloody hell was that?" asked Charlie frantically.

An older, bald man looked at him. "Boars" he answered simply. He was scary looking. I shrunk back a little. Jack came over by me.

"You're bleeding" he sighed. He took my hand and led me over to where he was fixing up Charlie. He started to work on the scrape on Charlie's side. I held a wet t-shirt to my head, trying to slow the bleeding.

"Those boars were looking to feed." Jack said. "We have to get rid of the bodies"

"Bury them? There's a whole bunch in there." Charlie rationalized.

"More than twenty" Sayid confirmed. "Digging will be difficult without shovels".

Jack shook his head. "We're not burying them. We need to burn them."

"They're people." Kate stated.

"I know they're people, Kate" Jack rolled his eyes.

Sayid spoke again with a tense sound in his voice. "Burning the remains, they deserve better than that."

Jack was getting desperate for us to understand. He took my hand off my forehead. "Better than what? Being eaten by wild animals? Because that's what's going to happen. Any bodies we bury are not going to stay buried for very long. Look, I know this seems harsh, but that fuselage in the sun—it's not about what they deserve. They're gone, and we're not." He finished. He dabbed on some peroxide. I gasped in pain.

"What you say may be true, but for us to decide how these people are laid to rest—it's not right" said Sayid. "No regard for their wishes? Their religions? "

Jack started putting the stitches through my head again. "We don't have time to sort out everybody's god."

"Really, last I heard we were positively made of time." Charlie interjected.

Jack sighed. "Look, I'm not happy about it either, but we crashed a thousand miles off course. They're looking for us in the wrong place. It's been 4 days, no one's come. Tomorrow morning we need everyone to start gathering up wood, dried brush, and turn that fuselage into a furnace. Wait until the sun goes down tomorrow night before we start the fire". He finished cleaning my head and walked off.

"If he's so eager to burn the bodies why are we waiting until sundown?" Charlie asked confused.

"He's hoping someone will see it" Kate sighed, defeated.

I followed towards were Jack went. I was burning my bare feet on the hot sand. "Knock it off" said Jack, breaking up a fight between Hurley and Sawyer.

"Stay outta this metro" Sawyer snapped.

"What's going on?" Jack asked impatiently.

"Jethro here's hoarding the last of the peanuts" Hurley replied.

"My own stash, I found it here" Sawyer complained.

"What about the rest of the food?" Jack asked

"There is no rest of the food, dude… we kind of – ate it all" Hurley replies sheepishly.

I stood up in shock. "We can find food" said Sayid. "There are plenty of things on this island that we can use for sustenance."

Sawyer sat down on a torn out plane seat. "And exactly how are we going to find this sustenance?"

A knife went flying past my head from nowhere straight towards Sawyers head. I closed my eyes and gasped. I was bracing for a lot of screaming and blood, but nothing came. I peeked to see that the knife had wedged itself in the seat next to him. I looked around for the person who had thrown it. It was the bald man from this morning.

"We hunt" answered the man matter-of-factly.

"How did you get that knife on the plane?" Kate asked suspiciously.

"Checked it" The man answered.

Jack pulled the knife out of the seat. "You either have very good aim or very bad aim Mr.…."

"Locke his name is Locke" Michael answered coldly.

"Ok, Mr. Locke. What are we hunting?" Jack handed him his knife back.

"We know there are wild boars on the island. Razorback by the look of them" said Locke." The ones that came into the camp last night were piglets': hundred to a hundred fifty pounds each. This means there's a mother nearby. A 250 pound rat with scimitar- like tusks and a surly disposition who'd love nothing more than to eviscerate anything that comes near"

I shifted my feet a little uncomfortable. I had no idea what half he said even meant.

"Boars usual mode of attack is to circle around and charge from behind, so I figure it'll take at least three of us to distract her long enough for me to pin her and slit its throat." My eyes widened.

Sawyer looked at Jack. "And you gave him his knife back?"

"Well if you've got a better idea" Jack snapped back, sounding annoyed.

"Better than the three of you wandering into the magic forest alone to bag a hunk of ham with nothing but a little bitty hunting knife," Sawyer asked. "Hell, no it's the best idea I've ever heard"

A small click came from Locke's direction. He had opened a whole case full of knives ranging in size from small to huge. I stared at him in awe. "Who is this guy?" asked Hurley

The time passed slowly as I made my way down the beach. I had promised Jack that I wouldn't go into the jungle alone so I couldn't go very far. Everyone at camp was too busy to talk to me. I sighed. Being stranded on a deserted island got boring fast. I watched the wave's crash on the beach. A lot of the people had left to go hunting for boar. Michael, Kate, Locke… I doubted they were going to catch anything.

I helped Jack stack wood into the fuselage. More brush and pretty mush anything else we could find was piled in.

I walked down the beach letting the water run over my feet. I spotted Charlie holding a stick. I laughed.

"Yeah I know" he said, "I suck at fishing" I watched him fumble with the stick and lunge at the water. And he… missed. He splashed the water angrily. "Bloody Hell"

"Can I try?"

"Sure" he said giving me the spear. "Be my guest"

I moved farther into the water and waited a minute for the fish to gather at my feet. They moved swiftly in circles. I could sort of see the pattern. In and out, turn right, circle back…

I lunged at the water with the spear and nabbed the fish in the gut. I raised the spear and handed it back to Charlie with the fish still on the end. "Got one" I smiled.

"How did– "he stumbled

"I like fishing" I shrugged, smiling at his bewildered expression. "You can keep the fish" I called walking away.

"Judith Martha Wexler form Denton, TX. Guess she was going to catch a connecting flight. Um, she wore corrective lenses and she was an organ donor, or at least would have been. Steve and Kirsten, I don't know their last name, but they were really in love and were going to be married. At least, wherever they are now, they're not alone." Claire sighed. She looked back down at her long list of papers that she held. I had to admit, I respected her for finding all of the info on all those people. I had to be hard.

Sawyer came up next to me. I was still ignoring him for the whole US Marshal thing. He still peeved me off. I sighed. Maybe I should just overlook it. He had a good reason to do it after all. I even understood the marshal was dying. He looked at me. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

Never mind he was still an ass.

"I'm not a baby Sawyer." I growled.

"Shoot, Dimples calm yourself" He said offended. "I was only trying to make small talk"

I went back to watching the fire burn away. Mrs. Peters was one of those bodies in that fiery grave. I shuddered. Just thinking about that made me want to puke. Again. I glanced over to where Jack was sitting all alone. I went and sat down next to him.

"She was my social worker" I said, feeling tears in my eyes.

"What?" Jack asked.

"The woman? That I was staring at on the first night? I never answered you" I said. "She was my social worker"

"Why are you telling?"

"Because" I said "She's burning inside the fuselage right now" He was silent. "I don't think I ever thanked you"

"It was no problem" he said. "You were alone"

"Yeah" I said, thinking back. "I was alone"

"How old are you?" Jack asked.

I sighed. "Thirteen" I responded. "I was in Sydney for boarding school"

"I thought you said you were with your social worker?"

"I was" I replied. "I was leaving school, she-" I choked. "She was my escort"

Jack was silent for awhile. "I'm sorry" he said.

"Its okay" I smiled. "Why were you in Sydney?"

"My…my dad died" he said, slowly. I looked over at him.

"I'm sorry" I said. "So you were there to get him?"

"Yeah" he sighed. "Seems like forever ago now, doesn't it?"

"Yeah" I laughed. "More than five days anyway"

"You know" he said, putting his arm around me. "This is the most I have heard you speak this entire time" I smiled, and stared out at the ocean.

"Hey" Jack said noticing my vacant expression. "You ok?"

"Yeah" I smiled. "I'm just peachy"

He laughed. "You're a weird kid you know that?"

"Just what every teenager want to hear" I laughed.

The fire was dying down slightly and Claire was done reading. "You should probably get to bed, Becca" he said slowly.

"Alright" I sighed. "Goodnight Jack" I called going to my spot in the sand.

I lay down, not realizing how exhausted I really was. I fell asleep and let my body untended for the first time all day. It was hard to keep a happy face when on the inside I was hurt. I couldn't contain my fear for much longer. I needed some kind of escape. I needed someone to talk to.

I awoke to see Mrs. Peters in front of me. She smiled and started to walk away. I followed trying to call out to her, but she didn't seem to hear me at all. I followed her all the way to the tree line, but stopped. I had promised Jack. She went on without me, but stopped about 5 feet in, where she turned to look at me. She started bleeding from her stomach and head. She put a finger up to her lips and turned her head sideways at a weird angle that made it look like her neck was broken.

I woke up crying.

"Becca?" asked Jack coming over by me. Everyone that was really close to me was stirring in their sleep, but only Kate and Charlie, who were the closest, woke up. I was still glancing around me when Jack came up to me and put his hand on my shoulders. I hadn't even noticed that I was standing up.

"Jack what's going on?" asked Charlie groggily.

"Go back to sleep Charlie" Jack commanded still looking at me. "Are you ok?" he asked me.

I was crying still and could still see Mrs. Peters body in the jungle. Jack took me up in an awkward hug. I sniffled and calmed down. Even though I didn't exactly want a hug and it felt funny, it was nice to be able to breakdown in someone's arms. He let go and I tried to smile. "I'm ok" I said. "Thanks Jack"

He nodded and let me lay back down. He went back to his spot directly across from me. He lay back down too, but didn't take his eyes off me. I tried to close my eyes, but I kept seeing her body in front of me. I flipped over so that Jack would think I fell back asleep. After a couple of hours, I could hear him snoring. I sighed and sat up. This was pointless.

I got up and went over to the water. I let it brush over my feet. It felt cool and refreshing. I wanted so much to jump into it and dance in the waves. I wanted it so bad, I nearly jumped in. All the sudden I could feel eyes staring into my back, I even new exactly who it was.

"Quit staring at me Sawyer"

"How did you know I was there?"

"I just did" I said gruffly.

"Why are you up?" he asked coming next to me.

"Couldn't sleep" I sighed. "Why are you up?"

"You woke me up" he laughed

"Sorry" I smiled. "Nightmares"

"Having nightmares in paradise" he laughed. I smiled.

"You don't have nightmares?" I questioned. "Not even sometimes?"

"Never"

"Why not?" I asked.

"Cuz I'm not scared of anything" he smiled.

"You all alone?" Sawyer asked suddenly.

"Yeah"

"Your parents on the plane?"

"Nope. I was with my social worker"

"Oh" he said looking at the ground. "They dead?"

"Only my mom. Never actually met my father."

"I'm sorry" he replied in a nonchalant way as though he knew that wasn't actually what I needed to hear.

"You know you're the first person to actually ask me what happened to my parents and then not get freaked out when I told you" I smiled to myself.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No" I sighed. "I think I like it. Makes me feel like less of a freak" he didn't say anything. "Tells me something about you too you know" I added.

"What?" he asked.

I laughed softly. "That you're in the same boat I am"

_I sat on the lake in our boat, almost falling asleep. With the sun on my back and the quiet lake, it was peaceful out here. I closed my eyes, not too quickly bothering to open them. The sun was blinding me. _

"_Becca, I think I got something" exclaimed Jay. I glanced over to where he was leaning and holding his pole excitedly. _

"_Reel it in" I said rolling my eyes. _

"_I am" he said on the edge of his seat. "Shit" he yelled falling out of his seat. _

"_Jay!" I screamed falling into the water. I was immersed in the cold, dirty lake water. I floundered for a minute, trying to catch my breath. He was sitting in the boat still laughing at me. "Oh, yeah?" I smiled rocking the boat. _

"_Don't" he said panicky. _

"_Aw, is Jaylon afraid of a little water?" I mocked in a baby voice. _

"_No, the person in the water scares me a little though" he laughed. _

_I gasped and splashed him. He tried to dodge the water and ended up falling out of the water too. He pulled me under. I pushed his head down. He came up seconds later. I wrapped my legs around his waist. I kissed his neck. _

_He turned around so that now I was facing him. "I love you Rebecca" he said his eyes boring into mine. I smiled and kissed him. _

"Goodnight Sawyer" I sighed. He was trying too hard to be mean and tough. No ones that hurtful. Not even the meanest people ever are that sarcastic. It was all an act, anyone could see that.

I lay back down and was happily surprised at how fast I was able to fall back to sleep. I must have been too tired for my own body to hold me up any longer.


	5. Chapter 5 Innocence

Chapter Five

_Innocence_

I woke up to screaming coming from the water.

"Jack, Jack" someone yelled. The sun blinded me and it took me a minute to get my brain to register what was going on. Charlie was searching frantically for Jack. "There's someone out there!" he exclaimed. He pointed out to sea.

I squinted out into the water, trying to see what Charlie was pointing at. A person was splashing around in the water. I watched as Jack ran out wildly into the water. I went to the water to see the scene better. A hand came in front me to stop me. I glanced up to see Sayid holding me back. "Don't get in the way" he commanded. I grumbled a little but I didn't move any closer to the water.

I watched as Jack dragged Boone back from the water. But to my surprise, he went right back in. "Jack?" Kate asked, helping Boone out from the shallows.

"There's someone still in there" he yelled diving back in. For some reason as soon as he said that my head pounded, I swooned a little.

"Rebecca? Are you ok?" asked Sayid helping me hold myself up. I got control of myself, but my head still pounded.

_Jaylon approached me in the hall in-between classes. He pulled me over to the side so we weren't in the way of walking people. I looked at him expectantly. "Hey" I smiled, going in to kiss him. He pulled me away. My face fell in shock. "What's wrong?"_

"_Why won't you say you love me?" he asked. _

_I opened my mouth to answer, but found no words would come out. I was at a loss for words. "I—I don't know" I whispered lightly._

"_Do you?" he asked. "Love me?"_

_I said nothing looking at my shoes. I wasn't sure I could say it. He huffed and walked away in anger. The bell rang and I subtly realized I was late for class but I didn't care. I slid down the lockers and sat on the ground. God damn it. _

"Yeah, headache" I replied sitting in the sand. Jack wouldn't be able to save her. I already knew. I watched as Jack came back in with no one in his arms. My head immediately started to clear up. I started to feel sick. How had I known that he would come back with no one? That was really weird.

A piercing scream came from behind me. I gasped and wheeled around staring at the jungle. Nothing was there.

"You're sure you're alright?" asked Sayid.

"Did you hear anything just now?"

"I didn't hear anything" he said now looking concerned. I shook my head in disbelief and went walking towards the jungle. I went right through the brush and into a little clearing only about two minutes in. I stopped and spun around. Something told me to stop here, but I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. I just stood there like an idiot as though the trees were going to tell me what to do. I heard a stick crunch behind me. I quick glanced to the noise, but nothing was there.

"Hello?" I asked the trees. Nothing answered my call. I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. Alright, this is stupid. I was jumping at nothing because of a coincidence. Suddenly, I could hear whispers all around me. I couldn't see where they were coming from at all. It was as though they were coming from all places at once. Another scream ripped through the peaceful jungle air. I ran back through the brush to the beach, tripping over my own feet. I went flying into the sand, getting a ton in my mouth.

I flipped over onto my back, coughing. I held my stomach in absolute pain. I was dying.

"Are you alright?" asked Kate staring at me.

"I'm fine" I said sitting up.

"Are you sure? I can go get Jack" she said pointing over her shoulder. I shook my head, still struggling to breathe. She gave me one more glance before turning around. I got up and went to see Charlie, to tell him about what happened to me.

"Charlie, guess –"I started.

"Hold on" he said looking at Hurley.

"Maybe we can find one of those water finding sticks?" asked Hurley.

"What should we do with the stuff we've got?" asked Charlie.

"I don't know" Jack answered, annoyed. He started to walk away, but Hurley and Charlie followed him with the suitcase of water. He seemed really upset about this morning.

"We should put it in the tent, yeah?" Charlie went on.

"Maybe the dog can find water?" Hurley continued, completely ignoring the conversation.

"Probably better if no one knows how little is left." Charlie thought aloud.

"I mean, dogs can find pot and bombs, so I'm sure they can find water."

"We're out of water?" I asked.

"Uh…no?" Hurley said dumbly. I rolled my eyes.

"Don't tell the others we're running low. That way you can ration it. Then you can decide what. . ."

"I'm not deciding anything" Jack said.

"Why not?" Hurley asked confused.

Jack didn't answer him. He only walked away. "What's up with him?" I asked.

"Don't know" Charlie replied. "But he better snap out of it. What did you want to tell me?"

"Never mind" I said shaking my head.

Later that same day, I was sitting on the beach, facing away from the jungle. I was still way freaked out from earlier. I tied to enjoy the sand, sea and the sun since I knew that I might as well. There was nothing else to do on the island. I had to admit, I always pictured being stranded on a deserted island to be a little more entertaining. I poured more sand over my bare legs.

"Hey Becca!" called Kate.

"Yeah?" I asked looking up. I yawned. "Is something wrong?"

"No, but have you seen Jack?" she asked glancing around.

"Not since this morning." I answered. "Has someone gone looking for water? Maybe he went with them."

"No" she said. "The water's missing"

"All of it?"

"Yeah. Someone stole it"

"Did you ask Sawyer?" I asked with a smile.

"Yeah, he's clean" she said. "And to make it worse, Claire's sick"

"Oh no" I exclaimed getting up and grabbing my pack. "Here, give her this" I said handing her my only bottle of water.

"How did you get this?" she asked suspiciously.

"I've had it since yesterday night. I was saving it since I heard about the water scare."

"Are you sure about that?"

"You can search my stuff it you want" I said pointing behind me. She took a glance towards where I was pointing.

"It's ok. I trust you" she replied taking the water. "I'm gonna go give it to her" she said going towards her tent.

I continued to sit and watch the wave's crash on the shore. Suddenly, Sawyer plopped himself down next to me. He stared at me with a happy grin on his face. "What?"

"You took the water" he stated.

"No I didn't" I rolled my eyes. "I just gave my bottle to Kate. Don't you think if I took it she would have been suspicious or something?"

"Maybe she's in on it too" he said

"Oh yeah, me and Kate have this great plan. We're taking all the water away and then slowly watching everyone dehydrates while we escape off into the jungle" I replied sarcastically. "Great plan"

"See, you're all cute and cuddly on the outside" he smiled. "But on the inside you're not so innocent"

_I hadn't talked to Jaylon in a week. I hadn't seen him at all; he hadn't even looked at me. I was slowly dying on the inside. I missed him. I missed him more than I ever thought I would. I watched from across the room as he ate dinner. I wished I could go talk to him. _

_I stood up and walked slowly towards him. I was determined. I was going to do it. I was going to tell him what I wanted to say. "Jay" I said sitting down. He ignored me and got up to walk off. I followed him into the hall. "Jay, I love you" I called after him. He stopped walking. _

_I waited for a few moments. He turned and ran to me. He picked me up in his arms and swung me around. "I love you too" he smiled and kissed me. _

Sawyer was still next to me. "Innocence is overrated" I sighed


	6. Chapter 6 Running

Chapter Six

_Running_

"Someone had to take responsibility for it. It would have never lasted" insisted Boone. He had taken all the water

"Oh shut up!" Charlie mumbled shoving him to the ground.

"Leave him alone" Jack commanded. Jack was finally backed from his big disappearing act. He immediately stood up and took charge of everyone's questions. "It's been six days and we're all still waiting. Waiting for someone to come. But what if they don't? We have to stop waiting. We need to start figuring things out. A woman died this morning just going for a swim and he tried to save her, and now you're about to crucify him? We can't do this. Everyman for him is not going to work. It's time to start organizing. We need to figure out how we're going to survive here. Now, I found water. Fresh water, up in the valley. I'll take a group in at first light. If you don't want to go come then find another way to contribute. Last week most of us were strangers, but we're all here now. And god knows how long we're going to be here. But if we can't live together, we're going to die alone." I stood up proud of Jack. He was taking charge.

It was late and I was planning on going to sleep, but waited up for Jack. "I liked your speech" I smiled. "Very moving"

"Thanks" he laughed. "It was spur of the moment"

"Really?" I laughed. "Sounded almost scripted. You could've been president."'

"I'll remember that" he smiled.

"So you were searching for water all day?" I asked.

"Something like that" he sighed. "Or at least I found it"

We walked to where we slept. I lay down and looked up at the stars. "Jack, what kind of doctor is you in the real world?" I asked.

"I'm a spinal surgeon" he responded. "Why?"

"Just wondering" I sighed. I flipped over. "Goodnight, Jack"

"Sleep tight, Bex"

The next day, I got a mango from the big community pile and sat down next to Hurley. "Hey" I smiled.

"Oh, hey" he sighed.

"Guess what"

"Huh?"

"Boone took the water"

"Huh" he replied unenthusiastically.

"What's wrong?" I asked. He definitely wasn't his normal happy self.

"Nothing" he replied with fake enthusiasm

"It's something" I persisted. "Just tell me"

"I just – I just want to go home" he stuttered. "I miss home"

"I miss home too" I smiled. "We all do. We'll get home eventually"

"Do you really believe that?" he asked.

"Yeah" I lied.

A loud smack broke our conversation. We ran over to where Jin, the male half of the Korean couple was attacking Michael. Sayid and Sawyer ran up to them and pulled them apart. Michael stood up shakily. He seemed extremely hurt.

"What the hell was that?" I asked in shock. That was definitely not normal. But, then again, what on this island was normal.

"No idea" replied Hurley. We headed over to where Michael was sitting on the ground with everyone else, and from the way they were talking, they had no idea what was going on either.

"I'm getting tired of saying this. I was just walking the beach with my son and all of the sudden this dude is all up on me" said Michael angrily. "I didn't do anything" he added.

Jin shouted from where he was handcuffed to a piece of the plane

"Surely there must be something you're not telling us" persisted Sayid

"Surely? Where you from man?" asked Michael.

"Tikrit, Iraq" answered Sayid

"Okay. I don't know how it is in Iraq, but in the United States of America where I'm from, Korean people don't like black people" Michael explained "Did you know that?" Jin shouted again "So maybe you ought to talk to him" he went on pointing at Jin.

Sun pointed to her wrist in an urgent manner.

"The cuffs stay on" Sayid stated

Sawyer butted in. "A little louder, Omar. Maybe then she'll understand you"

Hurley came over. "Guys that Chinese dude is going to get pretty crispy out here. How long are you going to keep him tied down like that?"

"He tried to kill Michael." Sayid explained. "We all saw it. The cuffs stay on until we know why"

Michael stood up and put his arm around Walt. "Come on, man. Let's go"

A distant scream came from the jungle, except this time it sounded more like a man's voice. I turned towards the jungle. "What was that?" I asked.

"What was what?" asked Sawyer sounding annoyed.

I looked back at everyone. They were all staring at me like I was nuts. "Never mind" I stated getting up. I walked back towards my bag. Was I going crazy?

I began to feel nauseous. This was horrible. I could feel my head spinning. I tried to concentrate on something to make it stop, but nothing helped. I nearly fell over. I fell to my knees in the sand and closed my eyes.

A hand came on my back and I jumped. I turned to see Sayid looking at me carefully. "I'm ok" I said standing up. I tried not to make my dizziness apparent as I stood straight.

"Are you sure?" he asked holding my shoulders. "Perhaps you should lie down?"

"No, I'm fine; I was just dizzy for a moment." I assured him.

He gave me the once over and I smiled at him. "Be careful, Becca. We don't want you getting sick"

"Thanks Sayid" I smiled. I walked away towards the jungle. I headed straight in and only stopped when I was sure that no one from the beach could hear me. Then I went over to a bush and hurled up my whole lunch from earlier. I was really regretting that mango now. I knelt on the ground on all fours, feeling slightly better. I too deep breaths to calm my churning stomach.

"_Jay I got it" I said running to him excitedly. "I did it!" I kissed him in excitement. _

"_What did you get?" he asked laughing. _

"_My father, he's alive" I panted, tired out from running. "The agency told me. He's alive"_

_His face fell slightly. "That's wonderful" he said trying to be happy for me._

"_I can find him" I sighed in bliss. "I can find him"_

_Jaylon held me close. "You're leaving" he said simply._

"_I have to Jay. I need to find him"_

"_You don't even know his name" Jay sneered. _

"_Jaylon, I have to do this" I said._

"_No, Bex, you don't"_

"_Jay!"_

"_Listen, you can do this if you want to but, me? I'm not" he said letting go of me and walking away. _

All the sudden I could hear whispers all around me. "I'm fine" I said standing up, feeling better all the sudden. I got up to see no one there. "Guys?" I called confused. They got louder and more urgent sounding. I turned around and glanced at the beach. I couldn't see it from here. I turned back around to see my mother in front of me. She was in normal clothes and her hair was perfect. She stared at me with pleading eyes.

"Mom?" I whispered softly.

"Don't answer them" she commanded coldly.

"Who?" I asked confused.

"The screams" she said as though noticing me for the first time.

"Why?"

She suddenly turned her head to the sky. I looked up and saw nothing there. When I looked back down she was looking there still. "They are coming" she stated frightened, her eyes widening.

"Who's coming?" I asked.

She didn't answer me, but instead pointed at the sky. I looked up again to see nothing, but this time when I looked back she was gone. "Mom?" I called. Suddenly, a piercing scream came out of nowhere. I took off in one direction, blindly running into the jungle; anything to stop the deafening screams. I kept going and didn't stop until my legs felt like jelly and I thought my lungs were going to explode. I fell to my knees in the middle of a small clearing. "Stop" I pleaded. I got my wish. I held my head and looked up to see the bushes rustling.

"Locke?"

"Becca?" he asked. "What are you doing out here?"

"I – I don't know" I said dumbly.

"What you just appeared out here?"

"I ran" I explained.

"From what?"  
I took a moment to answer. "My mother" I answered stupidly.

He gave me a weird look and I say down on the log nearby and put my hand on my head. I was sweating and shaking from being spooked like that. Why was my mother here? That made no sense.

"So let me get this straight, you're running away from your mother?" Locke asked. "Why?"

_I sat on the table, eating a snickers bar. Jaylon came up behind me. "I have money" he said urgently. _

_I turned. "What are you talking about?"_

"_I have money" he said. "A couple thousand more and we can go back to the States together for a week, to find him"_

_I took the envelope. "Where did you get this?" I asked. I was worried about him. He had been gone all day a lot lately. _

_He only smiled and pulled me into a hug. "You don't have to run, Becca. We can do this together."_

"It doesn't matter" I said softly.

"Does it?" he asked raising one eyebrow.

"Where's the beach?" I asked ignoring his question. He gazed at me for a moment and then pointed me in the right direction. I stood up and dusted myself off.

"Thanks" I replied. I started to walk away.

"Becca?" Locke asked.

I turned back around.

"Was your mother on the plane?"

"No" I said calmly. "My mother's been dead for five years"

Then I turned back around and went towards the direction he pointed me in. The walk back seemed to take forever for some reason. I knew I was going in the right direction since the beach was on the south side of the island and the sun was to my left. It was setting. I hoped I would make it back before dark.

I walked back onto the sand, thankful that there was still light. No one seemed to notice that I had even left. Then Jack came running up to me. "Becca, I heard that you felt sick earlier. Where have you been?"

"I was with Locke" I said. "Why?"

"You shouldn't go into the jungle alone, Becca" he said shaking his head. "It's not safe"

"I was with Locke, Jack" I argued. "I wasn't alone"

"Then where is he?"

"He went back after walking me back here" I lied.

"Alright, but –"

"I'm sorry, Jack" I said, annoyed now. Why did it even matter anyway? I was alive and perfectly fine. The jungle was creepy, yes, but I was fine. I had been taking care of myself for five years; I could do it on a deserted island too.

"It's just that you're alone on the island and someone needs to be there to take care of you and take responsibility for you" he said. "You shouldn't be alone anymore"

I sighed. "I won't go into the jungle alone if it will let you sleep at night"

"Thanks" he laughed. "Look we found a fresh source of water. It's a secure place in the jungle. Not too far in or anything. Some of us are going to move out there to be closer to the source"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because, it's too much work to carry water back and forth. So, we move there, and problem solved." He said as though he was really proud of himself or something. "I think you should come with us"

"You're going there?" I asked. I wasn't going alone.

"Yes" he smiled. "I know you don't want to hear it, but someone needs to watch you."

"And you want to be that person?" I asked with a small smile on my face.

"Yeah" he said laughing. "So you should come."

I sighed. "Ok"

"We'll move your stuff tonight with everything else."

I nodded and he went off, probably to convince some more people to move. I had to admit, I didn't really want to go out there, but I supposed that if Jack was going, I would be safe. I just hoped that the screams wouldn't start up while I was sleeping or something and I couldn't get away.

I sat down on the sand in a huff near my pack. "Where were you gone to all day?" asked Sawyer plopping himself down next to me. How was he able to show up just when I didn't want him to? It's almost like he had some gift or something.

"I was in the mystery forest" I replied rolling my eyes.

"What the hell were you doing out there?"

"Nothing really" I replied.

"Didn't old Jacko tell you not to do that?" he asked.

I took a swig of water and smiled. "What can I say, I'm a rebel" He rolled his eyes and looked out towards the ocean. Kate walked by and I could sense him stiffening up. "Why don't you talk to her?"

"What?" he asked jumping a little.

"Kate. Why don't you go talk to her?"

"Why would I want to do that?" he replied angrily.

"Oh, c'mon, you obviously like her" I argued.

"Do not"

"Do too"

"Do not" He insisted

"Do too" I said. He gave me an annoyed look. "I'm a thirteen year old girl, I can go all day if I want to" I smiled.

He sighed annoyed, and looked out into the water again. "I do not" he said under his breath as though trying to get the last word without me knowing.

I laughed and punched him lightly in the arm. "You do too" I said with a sense of finality. "I know I'm right"

"Well, this time you're wrong" he said. "I do not like her"

"Just keep telling you that, Sawyer" I said patting him on the shoulder.

"I heard people are going to the caves" he said, changing the subject.

I sighed and lay back in the sand. "You're not?"

"No way in hell" he replied. "I'm staying where the rescue is"

"Oh" I said, wishing I could stay too now. "Guess that makes sense" I sat up on my elbows.

"Why are you goin?" he asked.

"Jack told me I should" I said.

"Well, how nice of him" he smiled deviously. "Is he like your babysitter? Does he get paid by the hour?"

I rolled my eyes for what felt like the thousandth time and looked out to the horizon. "Do you think we're going to get rescued?"

"We can't stay here forever" he sighed.

"We couldn't get the transceiver to work" I said.

"Well that's cuz of that transmission we picked up" he scoffed, as though I should know this.

"What transmission?" I asked, confused.

"The one from the French woman" he said. I just blinked at him. "geez, don't old' Jacko tell you anything? We picked up something on it of a French lady saying, 'they're dead, save me'"

"So did she get rescued?" I asked.

He shrugged. "How the hell should I know?"

I thought about that. "If you got off the island right now what would be the first thing you would do?" I asked smiling. He sighed and thought for a moment.

"I would take a shower. A really long, hot shower" he answered. "What would you do?"

"Eat chocolate. Anything chocolate" I said. "Like a snickers bar. Those are amazing"

He laughed. I got up and brushed the sand off my back and butt. "Well, I have to go pack for the caves" I said moving towards my spot.

_A man about the age where he could be my father came and sat at the table with me. "Who are you" he said slowly, enunciating every word. _

"_I'm here for Jaylon Carter" I said calmly._

"_Ok" he said. "But make sure he gets this ASAP" he smiled evilly. _

_I said nothing in comment to that last statement. He left an envelope on the table. I took the envelope in my hand and looked at the name on it. It said Jaylon's name. _

I got my pack and threw my clothes into the bag, haphazardly. It's not like that mattered here. I put it all in a pile and made sure that I had everything. When I was sure that I did, I smiled and went to get something to eat. I hadn't eaten all day.

I picked up a mango from the community pile. This was turning out to be a very long, personal thing. I was only going to the caves for god's sake. I could come back to the beach all day if I wanted to. I looked out at the ocean and took a bite of the mango. I knew why I didn't want to go to the caves; I only didn't want to admit it. It was stupid anyway.

Jack came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Hey, you ready to Tonight? I want to start getting the meds out there first thing"

I nodded and sighed. "All ready"

"What's wrong?" he asked giving me a small smile.

"I don't know. I just need some normalcy or something you know? Like a parent I guess" I blushed. That was exactly what I told him I didn't want.

"I think we all have some wish of normalcy." He said giving me a knowing smile. "But what does that have to do with going to the caves?"

"I guess I feel like going to the caves is like giving up on the chance of being rescued."

"It's really not, Becca. Think of it more like moving down the street" he laughed.

I laughed with him. "Alright" I said. "I'm just moving down the street. A Street with a lot of trees and a freakish monster." I laughed again. "I can deal with that"

"Good" he said. The sun was nearing the horizon. "We should head out" he said moving away. I followed and helped him carry things out there along with my bag. It was only a fifteen minute walk. Probably even less than a mile. We were there already.

"Hello?" Jack called, entering the caves.

"What's this?" Locke smiled, noticing all the people trailing behind us.

"New tenants" Jack smiled. I followed Jack and put my stuff down right by his.

"Short walk" Hurley scoffed, throwing his stuff close to me. "They lied"

I laughed and took some water to clean my face. Jack was filling up his water bottle. Walt came over and looked at Jack and then at me, and grinned. I already knew what he was thinking. I waited until Jack looked like he was occupied, and splashed him.

He jumped a mile in the air and sputtered confused. Walt and I laughed pretty much hysterically. Walt just ran, but I stayed, laughing too hard to even move. Jack glared at me, but had a hint of a smile on his face. "Oh you're gonna get it" he smiled.

I laughed and went to splash him again, but he was too quick for me. He grabbed me and pulled me towards him. He flipped me over his shoulder so I was upside down. "Put me down" I giggled. He tickled my sides and stomach. I wriggled to get out of his grip. "Jack" I pleaded laughing.

He flipped me back onto the floor. He was laughing almost as hard as I was. Walt was watching a laughing from a distance. Michael stared, almost looking jealous. Walt came over and pulled on my arm to follow. I splashed Jack one last time, and he made a move to came after us. Walt and I took off.

We explored the inside of the caves. Walt suddenly stopped and looked back at me. "Look" he pointed.

I rounded the corner and saw two corpses staring at me. "Oh my—Jack!" I called.

He came running. "What?"

"There's dead people in here" I stated, pointing to the obvious.

"Yeah" he sighed. "Don't worry about it. We aren't using this cave" he led us out. "You guys should head to the fires. We don't want you wandering in the dark"


	7. Chapter 7 Caves

Chapter Seven

_Caves_

Charlie was sitting near one of the caves the next day. He looked upset. "Hey, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing" he said impatiently. I noticed that he was sweating and his eyes were bloodshot. He stalked off in the direction of Jack, who was inside one of the caves setting up the meds.

I shrugged it off and started to walk away. If I didn't know any better, I would say that Charlie was de-toxing off drugs. It was only a guess after my mother though.

All the sudden huge ear shattering crash sounded behind me. I hurled around to see the cave crash in on Charlie and Jack. A lot of dust ensued. Charlie came out of the cloud, coughing and stumbling. Jack didn't follow. He must still have been inside. I ran towards the cave, but Hurley stopped me. "Dude, it's not safe" he said shaking his head. He went forward to see if he could hear Jack. "Jack?" he called. "Can you hear me, dude?"

"I don't know what happened. We were just talking and it - and it came down on us - all happened so fast" Charlie said looking back at the cave.

"Dude, we gotta get help" Hurley said. "Charlie, go down to the beach and get help"

"Okay, I'm on it."

"And make sure you tell Kate" he called after him.

Michael went into the opening to check if it would be safe for us to try to dig him out. When he okayed the walls as secure, we devised a plan to get Jack out. "Alright, this area here is load-bearing. We've got to dig where there's no danger of the wall buckling in on itself. Here, we dig in here so the wall doesn't collapse. Four at a time, by hand, until we can find some kind of shovel. We take shifts, and go slow. Whoever isn't digging should be clearing the rocks that we clear out and bring the water to whoever is working, okay. Let's move."

Everyone moved into positions, I and Walt handled the water, since no one would let us near the opening of the cave. We lugged bottles back and forth to the people digging. It was a lot of rocks, and I never thought that it was going to end. Jack was going to die in there if we didn't get through soon. I wanted to cry.

"We're through!" yelled Michael. "We gotta hole"

"Jack?" called Hurley. "Can you hear me Jack? C'mon dude, answer me!"

I stood as quiet as I could to see if I could hear him answer. A small muffled sound came from the hole.

"I hear him" exclaimed Hurley.

"He's alive" Boone sighed in relief.

"Jack, bro, you okay?" Hurley went on. I couldn't hear the answer. Hurley looked at Michael. "What do we do? How do we get him out?" Hurley looked back at the hole. "He's okay. He made it out" called Hurley into the hole. I supposed he was talking about Charlie.

"Hey listen, Jack, we're going to get you out of there, okay?" Michael called. He seemed determined to get him out. He stared at the hole for a moment deciding what to do.

"Okay, we can't safely make that tunnel any bigger, but since Jack can't get out, one of us is going to have to go in and un-pin him."

"I think we need someone smaller" Boone said.

Jin said something in Korean. "Dude, we don't understand Chinese" Hurley said.

"Korean, man, they're Korean" Michael replied.

"I'll do it" I said raising my hand slightly. "I can fit easily.

"No way, it is way too dangerous" Michael disagreed.

"Oh, so it's ok for you, but not for me?" I asked angrily.

"I'll do it" Charlie said.

"Charlie?" Hurley said.

"No, man. Look, you're still too shook up. I might be able to squeeze through." Michael said examining the hole.

"Hey, who's going to take care of your son if something happens?" he asked Michael. "She's got a husband," he pointed to Sun. "He's got a sister" he said to Boone. I'm alone here, no one on the Island. Let me do this"

"Okay" agreed Michael.

"Excellent" Charlie smiled stepping towards the hole.

"Listen man, go slow," Michael instructed. "Try not to nudge any rocks around you"

"Anything else?"

"Yeah" Michael smiled. "Good luck"

Boone came forward and handed him a bottle of water. "Be safe, man"

"Good luck, Charlie" Hurley spoke.

"Thanks guys" he said turning towards the tunnel. I ran up to him before he went in.

"Charlie?" I asked.

"Ya, Bex?" he asked turning back towards me. He looked at me, waiting what I was about to say. I was suddenly speechless. I didn't know how to tell him what I wanted to say.

"Be careful" I said. "You're one of my only friends here"

"I'll be fine, Rebecca" he said with a smile.

I nodded and took a step back. He squeezed himself into the hole, trying extremely hard to not knock any of the rocks around him. It got to the point where I couldn't see him anymore. Suddenly, a small rumbling came from inside the cave.

"Charlie!" yelled Michael. "Charlie, move!"

The cave collapsed again, covering the entrance to the hole we had previously created. Now both of them were trapped in there. Worse yet, they may have been crushed. Everyone stood quiet and still, just staring at the hole in shock and worry. "We can't just leave them" Boone rationalized.

"They're going to run out of air" Hurley said.

"We have to help them" I whined wanting to go at the hole myself.

"Stop talking, I'm trying to think" cried Michael. I stood rooted to the spot, waiting for him to make a decision. I prayed that were alive in there.

Kate came running towards the hole. Oh, god. She must have heard about Jack. She went straight to Michael. "Where is he?" she asked in hysterics. "Where is he?"

"Kate?"

"Where is he? Where's Jack?"

"He's in there" motioned Hurley, saying what the rest of us could not.

"Does anyone know if he's alive?"

"We don't know" Michael spoke up. "Charlie went in there through a tunnel we dug, but it collapsed"

She went at the rocks as though they had done something to personally offend her. "Why is no one digging?" She began pulling rock after rock away from the pile. Quickly everyone joined in. Walt and I went back to hauling water to the people digging. I went to fill more water into a bottle as Vincent began barking.

"Hey, it's the doctor!" exclaimed Walt pointing at Jack and Charlie walking at us. I ran to Charlie, hugging his waist. Kate nearly jumped Jack.

"Ow, easy, my shoulder" chided Jack. He had a huge smile on his face.

"How did you get out?" asked Hurley.

"Charlie," explained Jack. "Charlie found a way out"

"Dude, you rock!" replied Hurley, slapping Charlie on the back. Charlie beamed back.

"You should go tell Claire" I said winking at him. He blushed and put his arm around my shoulder. I watched as everyone hugged Jack and I was last. I hugged his waist and held back tears. "I thought you were a goner" Jack laughed and hugged me back. I looked at his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine" he said. "C'mon"

The night came quickly that night. It had been a long day. I was sitting next to Walt at the fire closest to the brush. He didn't say much and I appreciated that.

Jack walked by with a make-shift sling on his arm. "Hey, Jack?" I called "I'm glad you're ok" He laughed and kept going. I poked the fire with a long stick out of boredom. "You know what would be awesome right now?" Walt asked with a smile.

"What?" I asked smiling back.

"Marshmallows"

I laughed. That would definitely make this a lot better. I could almost taste the mushy goodness on my tongue. I sat back on my elbows. I was in the jungle, next to a fire, with absolutely no rescue in sight, but at that exact moment. I was ok.

_I opened the door, slamming it behind me. "You're getting money from your Dad's broker, illegally?" I screamed._

_Jaylon jumped and covered my mouth with his hand. "Shh"_

"_Jay" I said in a whisper. "How could you?"_

"_If it's what I need to do to be with you, I'm gonna do it" he said._

"_No" I said, backing away. "We don't need to do this. I can go alone. I can just…"_

"_Just what? Board a plane and run away?"_

_I stopped, he was right. I didn't know what to do. "Jay I can do it myself" I said suddenly, surprising even myself. "I don't need you"_


	8. Chapter 8 Asthmatic

Chapter Eight

_Asthmatic_

Two days later my eyes fluttered open and I was instantly blinded by sunlight. Everyone else was awake already. I ate breakfast and saw Sayid sitting with Jack. He was cleaning a wound. I jogged over to listen to what they were talking about.

"Hey, Becca" he said. "Can you hand me a bottle of peroxide?"

"Sure" I replied going over to his stuff and picking up the bottle. I handed it to him and sat down on the ground next to Jack.

"Thanks" Jack replied. He turned back to Sayid. "This is going to hurt" he said to him putting the peroxide on "Ready to tell me what happened?"

He took a glance at me as though wondering if it was ok for me to hear this, but spoke anyway. "We were trying to find the source of the distress call. I saw the flare from the beach and then the flare from Sawyer's position in the jungle. I switched on the antenna, activated the transceiver and then darkness. Whoever hit me came from behind"

"Someone knocked you out?" I asked in shock. He nodded in response.

"They destroyed the equipment?"

"Yes" Sayid replied.

"Listen, we're going to figure this out, but don't do anything. . ." Jack said searching for words.

Sayid spoke in a grave voice of anger and determination. "I will do whatever I need to do to find the man responsible". It scared me at how angry he was.

"We need some help over here!" exclaimed Shannon holding up Boone. Jack ran past me. I could tell that Boone was hurt but I had no idea what could have possibly happened.

"What happened?" Jack asked.

Boone looked up at him barely able to speak. He had blood on his face. He was really banged up pretty bad "Sawyer" he answered softly.

I gasped in shock. Jack seemed to be deciding what to do about that. I wished that I could leave the caves and go find Sawyer and hit him. I didn't care if Boone did anything to deserve it. Sawyer was an ass.

I handed Jack another bottle of Peroxide so that he could clean up Boone. "Thanks" he said offhand. He was extremely pissed off.

"Jack, its fine. It's just a scrape." Boone insisted.

"Yeah, lot's of scrapes today" he said pouring the peroxide on. "I'm running out of peroxide" he noted.

"He just jumped me man. I didn't. . ."

"Why?" questioned Jack

"Shannon has asthma" Boone explained.

"Asthma? I've never seen her have an attack before"

Boone flinched. "Because, she had an inhaler. She's sneaks hits when no one's looking. She's been embarrassed about it since she was a little kid. I guess breathing's not cool"

"_Had_ an inhaler?"

"It ran out a couple of days ago. But I had 4 refills which should have been enough for a couple of months. But she always forgets her medication so I put it my suitcase. Today I see that Jackass reading _Watership Down_."

"You're losing me" Jack said shaking his head.

"It was in my bags, the stuff that I checked" he went on. "If he has my book he has my luggage, if he has the luggage he has the inhalers. Her breathing got really rough today, man. If she has an attack, it's not going to be good"

Jack got up and started a quick walk towards the beach. I got up to follow him. "Stay here, Bex" he instructed.

"Why? Where are you going?"

"To get the inhalers" he answered.

I watched him walk away angrily. I wished I could go with him, but he told me to stay here, and I really didn't feel like arguing with him later about it. Especially with the mood he was in. I remembered when I was last that mad.

"_You're nuts, Becca" Jaylon said accusingly"_

"_No, Jay" I said. "I'm not doing this anymore. You're going to get caught."_

"_Well you can't just go off alone" he said._

"_Yes I can" I said. "It's none of your business. I may be only thirteen, but I have plenty of experience on my own"_

"_I don't care if you were twenty" he exclaimed. "You can't run off to find someone a continent away if you don't even know if he's alive"_

"_I can and I will" I said._

I wandered around the caves for awhile, not really knowing what to do. Many had gone back to the beach for the day, so not everyone was even around. I huffed and grabbed my pack and wandered into the jungle aimlessly, while still keeping an eye on the caves so that I didn't get lost. I looked up into a tree and saw a bunch of fruit.

I hitched my foot into a crevice and climbed up onto the first branch. I was hanging by my arms and had to swing my legs up to get a good grip. Then I shimmied to the trunk and wrapped my legs around it to keep myself from falling. I went higher and higher up into the tree and got to a good branch with the fruit on it. I reached over and grabbed all the mangoes I could and stuffed them into my pack. Once my pack was heavy enough that I knew I couldn't stuff more in, I went back towards the trunk.

I went down two more branches and stopped to re-position myself. "You're pretty good at that" Locke said, pointing up into the tree.

I laughed and shimmied the rest of the way down. "Thanks" I put my pack in the ground and looked back into the trees. "Not much fruit left around here. Gonna have to move west"

"How did you get so good at climbing and such?" he asked.

I took a swig of my water. "I used to live by a big park with my foster parents. I like to climb trees" I laughed.

"Foster kid, huh?" I nodded. "Me too. C'mere let me show you something"

I followed him farther into the jungle. We stopped and pointed upwards. "Think you can climb this?" he asked. It was bigger than what I was used to, that's for sure, but nothing I couldn't handle.

"Yes" I said carefully. "But why –?"

"Look again, Rebecca" he said pointing up.

I glanced upwards to see a glint of metal. It was gold and was in what looked like a heart shape. I gasped. It was my necklace. The one that my mother owned before me. I stared at it for a moment, before looking back at Locke. "How did you know?" I asked.

"I just figured" he said shrugging his shoulders.

I smiled and went to go up in the tree. I was on the branch right below my necklace when Sayid came to talk to Locke. I decided not to make myself known and listened to their conversation.

"Locke, where were you last night, around sunset?"

Locke took a moment to answer. "Well, I'm afraid the only witness to my whereabouts is the boar that I was skinning for our dinner. I heard you were trying to send out a distress call. So it would seem whoever attacked you has a reason for not wanting to get off the island. Maybe someone who is profiting from our current circumstances? And from what I've seen you and Mr. Sawyer share a certain animosity."

"No, he has an alibi" Sayid sighed. "Just before I was struck, he set off a bottle rocket, a signal we had worked out - 2 kilometers away. He wouldn't have the time to go. . ."

"Unless he found a way to time delay the fuse on his rocket" Locke suggested.

"How could he possibly have . . .?"

Locke cut him off. "Anyone who watches television knows how to improvise a slow fuse" Locke went on. "Use a cigarette" Sayid looked really interested. He thought Sawyer did it. Locke handed him his knife. "Just in case there's a next time"

I got my necklace and went back down the tree. "Interesting" I said staring at him.

"What?" he asked. He stared back at me.

"You think Sawyer did it?" I asked.

"Why not? Him and Sayid go at it all the time" he said offhand. "I thought it made sense to mention it"

"Why are you lying, Locke?"

"I'm sorry?"

I smiled. "I know you were lying. You have a tell"

"A tell?"

"You wring your hands when you lie" I said simply. "So why did you knock him out?"

He didn't respond. "Rebecca, have you ever felt like you had a bigger purpose in life?" he asked. "Like fate?"

"I suppose" I answered simply.

He smiled. "You better get back to the caves. Jack will be looking for you" he admonished.

I headed back to the caves, deciding not to press him any further. Jack wasn't back yet, but Shannon was starting to wheeze. "Shit" I said. "Where's Jack?" I questioned Boone.

"He hasn't comeback yet" he said not taking his eyes off Shannon.

I sighed and went running towards the beach. I got there in record time and searched for Jack. We needed him back at the caves with those inhalers pronto. I saw him by the water and ran at him. I ran right into his arms and he calmed me down as I caught my breath. "Jack" I said. "Shannon is wheezing"

"Dammit" he swore and ran with me back to the caves. He immediately went to his meds and searched for something to help. He was throwing stuff everywhere. I didn't know what to do to help, so I just stood there. "Just try to breathe. Breathe. Come on Shann work with me." Boone begged.

Sawyer came up into the caves and began to fill his water bottle. Jack saw him immediately and went right up to him.

"Give me the inhalers - now." He demanded.

"Hell, I wondered when you were going to stop asking nice" Sawyer sneered. Jack slugged him in the face so hard I heard it from where I was standing.

"Well, it's about time, cowboy. Been telling you since day one, we're in the wild. Didn't think you had it in you" Jack hit him again.

"Stop it" I yelled "That's not helping anything"

"That all you got?" Sawyer asked.

"Help, she's not breathing. The attacks are getting worse" complained Boone.

"Shannon, listen to me." Jack commanded. "Look at me, look at me. You need to listen now. This isn't just the asthma, its anxiety. It's in your head"

"No" Shannon cried.

"Yes. You know that your medicine's run out and you're panicking. Shannon, Shannon, look at me. We can fight this, together, okay? Nod your head, Shannon. Good. Breathe in through. . . "

"She needs her inhaler"

"Boone!" Jack yelled. Then he turned back to Shannon. "Breathe in through your nose, slowly. No, no, no. In through the nose, like this. You can do this Shannon. You can do it. In through the nose. You got your breath. Yeah. Your color's coming back. See, I knew you could do this. Do you feel it?"

Shannon took a shaky breath. "Yes"

Jack sighed. "It's passing. Okay. Again, in through the nose. Alright, just keep doing that. Keep breathing like that**.** That's perfect, good job" He took Boone aside so that I couldn't hear what he was saying anymore. I stared at Shannon as though she was a ticking time bomb. What if she died? It would be all Sawyers' fault.

Jack walked back towards the caves. I followed along with Sayid. I put the stuff from earlier back with the medical supplies.

"Jack, what will happen if she doesn't get the medicine?" Sayid asked. Jack only shrugged, even though I knew he knew. He only didn't want to say it. "Then we have to make Sawyer give it to us" Sayid contemplated.

"Yeah, that's what I'm going to do"

"No, not you, me. I served 5 years in the Republican Guard" Sayid explained.

"I thought you were a communications officer" Jack said curiously.

"Part of my training entailed getting the enemy to communicate" Sayid spoke gravely. "Just give me 10 minutes with him. He'll give us the medicine" Jack didn't say anything to that. "Is that a yes?

Jack took another long minute to think. "Yes" he answered slowly. My heart dropped. What did that mean? What were they going to do to him? Kill him? They couldn't do that could they?

Wait, what was I saying? Who cares? Shannon could die if we didn't get these. They should do whatever it took to get the inhalers. They couldn't hurt him too bad though, no matter how much of an ass he was. Although, since it was Sawyer, I'm not sure if too many people would object if they did.

I watched them leave the caves. I wanted so much to go with them, but knew that they wouldn't let me come anyway, and I'm not sure if I even wanted to. Boone was still sitting with Shannon. I didn't know what to do with myself after a couple of minutes. I wasn't in the mood to just sit. I stood up and saw Walt and Locke walking together. "Hey, Becca" Walt called. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing" I lied with a smile.

"You look sad" he commented.

"I'm fine" I laughed.

He smiled and went towards his dad. Locke stared at me with a smile on his face. He looked as though he knew something I didn't. 'What?" I questioned.

"You squint your eyes" he said.

"Huh?"

"Your tell" he explained. "You squint your eyes"

"I won't tell if you won't" I said smiling.

I walked over to the cave and got out all the meds to organize them better and take inventory. It was a thankless task, but at least I knew that Jack would notice. Better yet, maybe it would help me if he ever asked me to get something. He had it strewn everywhere. Sayid came running to the caves with blood all over the front of his shirt. I stared at him, wide eyed. What the hell did he do to Sawyer?

"Whose blood is that?" Boone asked following him towards me. "Whose blood is that?"

"Sawyer" Sayid answered looking through the supplies.

"You went after Sawyer and you didn't even tell me? She's my sister" Boone complained.

"What are you looking for?" I asked him.

"Jack's bag" he said. I handed it to him and he ran off into the jungle at a speed I hadn't previously known was humanly possible. I was going to follow, but then didn't think it was such a good idea, since I couldn't even run that fast in the first place, would get lost, and then be trapped to spend eternity in the jungle.

I sat down in the caves and waited. So far, this had been a pretty crappy day. Nothing was turning out right. I decided to go back to the beach, as though that might make me feel better. I hit the sand and was happy. It made me feel safer here than in the jungle. Charlie was sitting with Claire, and I could see them smiling. I sat down on the sand, enjoying the feeling of it on my legs. It was still hot from the sun, but not too hot to where you couldn't touch it. I lay down, watching the sunset.

"Hey, Sayid" I said as he passed by.

"Becca" he said in a grave tone.

"Where are you going?" I asked motioning at his pack. He looked packed up as though he was going on a long journey or something.

"I am leaving" he explained.

"Why?"

"Rebecca, I did something horrible today"

I didn't know what to say to that. I stood up. "Whatever you did today in the jungle with Sawyer, I'm sure he deserved it"

"No one deserves what I did today" he said shaking his head and walking away.

"Will you be back?"

"I don't know" he responded gravely. I looked at him with a hurt expression on my face. "I hope to meet again" he said kissing my forehead.

I smiled. "We will"

He returned my grin and went off to go wherever he was planning on going on the first place. He would be back. I knew it.

I saw Kate walking out from Sawyer's tent. He must've been in there now. I wanted to go in, but didn't think it was the best idea. Then again, I thought, I wanted to know. So I walked over and peeked my head in. He was lying on the ground in a dazed state. "What happened?" I asked looking at the bandage on his arm.

"You come in here to find out why I am the way I am? Go ask Kate"

"No. I only wanted to know if you're ok"

"That son-of-a –"he stopped. "He stabbed me"

"Damn" I said looking at his bandage still. "Are you ok?"

"Oh, I'm just peachy" he sneered.

"Alright, if you're going to yell at me, I'm leaving" I said turning to go.

"Just hold up, Dimples" he said. "Hand me that water"

I handed it to him and stared at him for a moment. "So why did you pretend to have the inhaler?" I asked.

"I don't know" he sighed.

"Oh" I said simply. Then I left and went to sit on the sand again. I finished watching the sunset and wondered why I leaned back and closed my eyes and was falling asleep before I knew what was happening.


	9. Chapter 9 Golf

**Thank you for all the reviews! I appreciate it! **

**Chapter Nine**

_Golf_

Charlie was shaking me gently. "Hey, Bex, wake up. You got to get back to the caves."

"Hmmmmm," I said sleepily, sat up only to fall back down again in the sand. I couldn't have gotten up to save my life. I could hear Charlie and Jack, but as if from a great distance. I guess Jack was tired of fooling around, because he picked me up and carried me to the caves.

I woke next to Jack in the caves two days later. The last two days had been boring as hell. I needed something to do with myself before I went mentally insane. The sun hadn't even risen yet. It was still early and only a few people were up. I watched Jack sleep for a second. He was snoring. I groaned and flipped onto my stomach, trying to block out the noise. I waited until the sun was rising and hit him on the arm. He popped awake. "Becca?" he asked in a weird daze.

"You snore" I stated with my face hidden in the ground. He laughed and patted me on the back.

"Sorry" he said getting up. He went over to his medical supplies searching for whatever he needed. He still had to change Sawyer's bandages. "I'm going to the beach, you wanna come?" he asked me.

"Sure" I said getting up and dusting myself off. We started to walk towards the beach. "Jack?"

"Huh"

"Do you like being the leader?"

"I'm not really a leader, Becca"

"You are too" I said. "Everyone looks to you when something goes wrong" He scoffed. "Sorry, Jack, but that sounds like a leader to me" we walked in silence for awhile. We were right by the beach when he finally answered me.

"I didn't ask to have people look to me" he replied slowly. "It just sort of happened."

"Well you're pretty good at it, for all its worth"

"Thanks, Becca" he laughed. "That means a lot" He went towards Sawyer's tent and I hung back a little. I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk to him right now. I was still sort of pissed about the last time. He had no right to get mad at me like that.

I watched Jack stalk away from Sawyer's tent in an angry fume. Wow, Sawyer was just pissing everybody off lately. I went towards his tent only watching what was going on inside. Sawyer was struggling to wrap a new bandage around his hurt arm. I tried not to laugh as he got twisted and tangled in the mess of gauze. He spotted me standing there and sighed annoyed. "Want some help?" I asked going closer.

"Not from you" he shot back.

"Fine" I said going to leave. He struggled with the gauze for a few more seconds.

"Dimples get your ass over here and fix this" he pleaded. I could tell that asking was making him feel angry.

"What's the magic word?" I taunted. He mumbled a few choices swear words under his breath. I went over and rewrapped his arm so that it was straight. "Just so you know I meant please" I said amused.

"Thought you were mad at me" he stated.

"I am"

"Then why are you here?"

"Because maybe I'm trying to forgive you but you're making kind of hard." He didn't answer that.

"I don't need your forgiveness" he sneered.

"Why do you try so hard to make people hate you?" I asked suddenly. "Nobody honestly wants that"

"You think that deep down I'm a good person?" he scoffed. "Well, I'm not."

"I never said you were a good person" I replied. "I only said that you don't really want people to hate you"

"Well, maybe I do"

"Well then I'm going to like you just to piss you off then" I yelled. "So there". Then I stomped out of the tent, just to make my point. I realized that what I had said was dumb and didn't really make sense, but it made me feel better just to know that he was fuming in there. If he wanted people to hate him, he was doing a damn good job. He had nearly caused Shannon to die, made Sayid leave, and now was just pissing me off all together. I walked back to the caves, wanting to get as far away from him as possible.

Walt was arguing with his dad about being bored and I happened to go by. "Go play with Becca" he said.

Walt looked at me and I smiled. "What do you want to do?" I asked feeling sorry for him.

"I want to go to the beach" he argued.

"Man, you need to stay around here alright. I'll take you later"

Walt grumbled and walked away. I followed and sat down next to him. "Wanna go for a walk"

"My dad's not gonna let me" he said shaking his head.

"What he doesn't know isn't gonna hurt him" I smiled. Walt smiled back. We got up and explored the surrounding caves. As we got farther away, Walt loosened up a little bit.

"Becca?" he asked pointing to a cliff about twenty feet up. I glanced upwards to see the back of my mother standing at the top. She simply walked forwards into the brush. That was when the screams stared again.

I covered my ears, trying to ignore the pain in my head as the screams persisted. When they finally stopped I glanced up to see no Walt in sight. "Walt?" I called. "Walt?"

I got no answer. I stood up and spun in a circle. The leaves rustled in a familiar way. I stared in fear as Walt came out of the bushes. "Why did you fall down?" he asked frowning.

"Did you hear screams?" I asked.

"Yeah" he said. "But they didn't make me fall down"

"I guess I'm just different" I replied looking up to where I saw my mother, previously.

I walked with Walt back to the caves. Everyone was leaving to go see something with Hurley. I decided to go with them, just to get my mind off of the thing with Walt. We arrived in the jungle to a big open path of land. He stopped and looked at me, Jack, Charlie, and Michael. "Welcome, to the first, and hopefully last, Island Open" he said excitedly, waving his arms.

Jack laughed. "What?"

"It's two holes for now, 3 pars, and no waiting" Hurley went on.

"Hurley, you built a golf course?"

"Rich idiots fly to tropical islands all the time to whack balls around" he explained.

Michael scoffed. "All the stuff we've got to deal with, man - this is what you've been wasting your time on?"

Hurley seemed exasperated. "Dudes, listen. Our lives suck. Everyone's nerves are stretched to the max. I mean, we're lost on an island, running from boars and monsters - freaking' polar bears"

"Polar bears?" Michael asked in confusion.

Charlie piped up. "You didn't hear about the polar bear?" Michael shook his head.

"Where've you been?" I asked.

Hurley spoke up again. "Look, all I'm saying is, if we're stuck here, then just surviving not going to cut it. We need some kind of relief, you know. We need some way that we can, you know, have fun. That's right, fun. Or else we're just going to go crazy waiting for the next bad thing to happen"

"I agree" I nodded. "So?" I asked taking a club from the bag. "Who wants to play?"

Jack took the club from me and a ball. Hurley seemed happy that I agreed with him. He stood behind me. "Thanks Bex" he smiled.

"Anytime, Hurley" I replied. "Besides, I really do think that this was a good idea. We do need something to do with ourselves"

Everyone seemed satisfied with the golf thing. I had to admit, I wasn't the only one who was going stir crazy. We played golf for a few hours and I stood by and watched.

"Becca, you wanna try?" asked Jack handing me a club.

"No, I can't" I said uneasily.

"C'mon, just try" he urged.

"Jack, I don't even know how" I explained a little embarrassed.

"Well then I'll show you" he said pulling my wrist. I sighed and let him come up behind me and hold on to my arms. "Alright, you just going to pull back like this and –"he let go and the ball went flying into the air and pretty close to the hole. "There you go" he smiled.

I laughed. "Easy" I stated.

I finished the round and actually putted it into the hole. I had gone way over par, but at least I would understand the game now. Charlie grabbed me from behind and swung me around. Jack went to take another turn.

"This is a problem, man." Michael said shaking his head.

"Yeah" Jack agreed, trying to scope out the situation.

"I mean, I know what I'd do, but it's got to be your call"

"Okay, give me a seven iron"

Michael picked it out and handed it to him. "You got it"

"Hey, heads up over there" Jack called to Charlie and Hurley who were trying to taunt him. They spun around and jumped all around the hole.

"No Jack, you won't get anywhere near us" Charlie taunted shaking his ass.

Some guy came up to the hole, looking for Jack. "Hey, Doc? There you are. Somebody said you went this way. Listen, that rash of mine, it's starting to spread. It's like the size of a grape. What are you guys doing? Are you playing golf?"

"Yeah" Jack said in disbelief.

The man looked around and gave a smile. "Can I play?"

Soon the entire camp was coming to play. Jack was on his second shot.

"Ugh!" Charlie exclaimed.

"Dude, I think he stuck it" Hurley said in utter shock.

Charlie grumbled under his breath. "Lucky, lucky"

"This thing has a ladies team?" Kate laughed.

"Hey, when did you show up?" Jack asked Kate going up to her.

"A while ago. I almost didn't recognize you. You're smiling" she replied.

Jack laughed, his smile growing. "I'll have to watch that"

"So how'd you come up with this?"

"Wasn't me - it's all Hurley. I've been going crazy trying to make everyone feel safe. I haven't been sleeping because I want everyone to feel safe. And he builds a golf course and everyone feels safe" Jack sighed. I felt sort of bad for him. He was completely wrong. Jack made everyone feel safe.

"Aw, crap, do over!" exclaimed Hurley going after his ball.

"It's a mulligan, mulligan." Charlie insisted. "It's a gentleman's sport, you've got to get the words right. Mulligan."

"You want to - let me" Charlie insisted going around and hugging Hurley's waist.

"Dude, get away from me" Hurley said pushing him off. I laughed really hard after that. Now, the whole camp really was here. They all came to play and watch in general. Soon it was filled with people. Even Sawyer came.

Charlie was getting ready to putt again. He was being really obsessive too. He was even picking grass out of his way. Michael laughed at him. "Guys, please. I've never made par on a course before" He lined up his shot and still missed, even with all his grass picking.

"Dude, you were robbed" Hurley laughed.

"Bollocks" Charlie said, annoyed. "See that?" I laughed.

"Okay, Jack. It's up to you. Sink this you get to wear the blazer" Michael stated.

"No pressure" called Kate.

"Yeah, no pressure" Charlie taunted. He was still mad that he missed.

Hurley watched him for a moment. "5 bucks says he sinks it" he called

"Hey, you're betting against me?" Charlie called back, hurt.

"Sorry, dude, but you're a duffer like me."

Boone caught on fast. "Make it 10 and you're on."

The man with the rash spoke up too. "I don't have any cash, but I'll bet my dinner on the Doc."

"I've two tubes of sunscreen and a flashlight says he chokes" taunted Sawyer . Everyone paused for a moment. They were all still skeptical of him. I turned my nose up at him to show that I was still mad.

"I'll take that action" Kate called.

"Yeah, yeah, me too" put in Boone.

Jack lined up his shot and made an excellent putt. He was so close, and… he made it.

"Damn" called Sawyer. He wasn't really that upset though. I could tell. The sun was starting to go down already. Wow, we had been here for hours.

I stood in front of Charlie and Jack who were discussing the par and how to build more courses. I sighed and watched the sun start to set. Sawyer bumped into my shoulder to get my attention.

"What?" I snapped.

"You're still mad?" he sighed.

"Yes" I shot back.

"Look" he said. "I – I'm sorry, ok?"

"Sorry, what was that?" I asked with a hint of a smile.

"I'm not saying it again" he said with an annoyed expression.

I folded my arms.

"Fine, geez, Dimples. I. Am. Sorry." he whispered lightly. "Now am I forgiven?" he smiled.

"I don't know" I replied. I was enjoying taunting him.

"Hey, Becca, We're all heading back to the caves" Charlie called. "Are you coming?"

"Sure" I replied running after them. "Oh and Sawyer" I said turning around. "You're forgiven"


	10. Chapter 10 Taken

**Chapter Ten**

_Taken_

It had been a few days of golf and pretty much nothing else. Everyone was beginning to get antsy again and I knew that something had to go wrong sooner or later. Little did I know it would be in the middle of the night? I awoke to sounds of screams. I jumped up and glanced around the camp for the source. Charlie was holding Claire. She must've been the one screaming. I ran over with a few others to make sure she was all right. "It's alright. Hey, hey, you're dreaming. You were sleep-walking, alright?" Charlie said, trying to calm her down. He took her hands and noticed that they were bloody. I stared, wide eyed. "Claire, what happened?"

Claire was too busy trying not to cry to answer. Jack came running over and sat her down. "Becca, get the medical supplies" I went and got the peroxide and some gauze for her hands. "That must have been a hell of a nightmare" Jack said.

Claire shuddered slightly. "Who said it was a nightmare?"

"I'd say when someone makes their fists so tight they dig their fingernails a quarter of an inch into their palm they probably weren't dreaming about riding ponies." Jack replied. "Did you ever sleep-walk before?"

"No. I don't think so. How would I know?"

"It'll get back to you. I had a girlfriend once that told me I talked in my sleep".

"What did you say?"

"Don't know. Whatever it was she didn't like it" he went on. "How was your OB-GYN in Sydney?"

"Good. She was good" Claire said slightly distracted.

"Becca, come here for a sec" called Charlie. I got up and went over to see what he wanted. "You have nightmares, right?"

"Yeah, sometimes"

"What makes you feel better?" he asked curiously.

"Depends on the nightmare" I stated, thinking back to what I did to help. "Why? You want to do something for Claire?"

He smiled sheepishly. "I feel bad ya, know? I made her come to the caves and then she starts having nightmares"

"I don't think it had anything to do with you, Charlie" I sighed. "It was just a dream." He looked forlorn. "Don't leave her alone. Stay close in case it happens again, and maybe make her laugh. To take her mind off of it"

"Thanks" he said going off.

I went to go back to sleep, but found that I couldn't. I was too shaken up and scared of what I would see if I closed my eyes. I didn't want to have a nightmare like Claire did. I stayed awake for the rest of the day, just keeping to myself. I was tired and didn't want to move much.

I sighed and decided to do something with myself. I got up and headed for where the water was. I took some water in my bottle and headed for the beach. It was a nice day and I wasn't going to miss out on the sun. The closer I got, the hotter it seemed to become. I glanced around the beach looking for someone to talk too. I spotted Jack near the water, but he was with Kate and I didn't want to interrupt them.

I strolled down the sand, trying not to get too much in my shoes. This was a boring day. There was nothing to do and no one to talk to. I smiled as I remembered what I had previously done when I was bored. Laundry.

I never had to do laundry here or at least not yet anyway. I hadn't realized all the things I had slacked off on lately. The first few days we were here I had been focused and intent on getting things done. Now, it seemed like I had nothing to do. We had been on the island for 15 days, but it felt like so much longer. So much had happened in that time. I couldn't even remember the date anymore. I watched as the camp moved around me and noticed how everyone was working together. The tide was changing so everyone was moving their stuff up the beach. We had hardly known each other for fifteen days and yet all of us had already picked who we liked, disliked, hated, or thought was hot.

A thought clicked in my head. October 6th, it was October 6th. I hadn't realized that it had been that long. Wow, life passes by quickly when you're on a deserted island. And rescue still hadn't come. A pain shot through my heart. We were never going to be rescued. I was going to be stuck on this damn island for the rest of my life. I almost started to cry.

"Whoa, Dimples are you crying?" asked Sawyer.

"No" I answered sniffling slightly. "I don't cry"

"Well, alright then" he sighed. "But those look like tears to me"

"Well, there not" I snapped, wiping my eyes. I sighed and looked down at my hands. "Um, how's your arm" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"Its fine" he smiled slightly. "But you're changing the subject"

I laughed. "So what if I am?" He only laughed back. I stared out to sea. "So did you hear about Claire?"

"What about Claire?"

"She had a nightmare last night" I said. "Woke up screaming with her fingernails dug into her palms"

"Wow," he stated. "Some pretty interesting stuff happens at the caves"

I didn't respond. Kate was by the ocean with Jack still. Sawyer was staring at them. "Sawyer, why don't you just apologize?" I asked.

"What?"

"Apologize to Kate" I stated. "She'll probably forgive you and then you'll be happy again."

"What makes you think I did something?" he asked offended.

I gave him an accusing look. "Sawyer, if she's not speaking to you, you did something wrong" He sighed and looked away. "You apologized to me" I rationalized. "But you can't apologize to her"

"You are a kid" he said. "I knew you would forgive me"

"I may be a kid, Sawyer, but I've been through a lot" I said. "And I don't always forgive people so easily." I walked towards the caves. I had enough of the beach for the day.

For some reason it felt like every time I had went to the beach lately, I got pissed. Maybe I shouldn't go there or something.

The rest of the day passed quickly and I was asleep before I knew it. The next thing I knew, I was awoken by screaming again. "Help me! Somebody's going to hurt me, please, help me" shouted Claire. She was crying and yelling hysterically. I jumped to my feet and headed over to see what was going on.

"Someone attacked her" Charlie explained holding Claire's hand.

"What?" Jack asked, confused.

"He held me down" Claire cried.

Michael looked around crazily. "Which way did he go? How long ago?"

"I don't know. I couldn't see. Just now, just now, he just ran away."

Hurley came running over. "What's going on?"

"We should find out, check the surrounding caves" Charlie proposed.

"Hey, wait, wait, hold on don't go –"Jack called, but it was too late, Charlie had made up his mind.

"Hurley, let's go" Charlie motioned, then left.

"C'mon, c'mon, let's sit down here, okay?" Jack said to Claire. He turned to a man I hadn't met. "Go get her some water"

"Yeah, sure" the man said going to get it.

Jack turned back to Claire. "Claire, look at me, it's okay. You're safe now"

"Did you get a look at him, at all?" Michael asked.

"No, it was dark. I couldn't see"

"Where did this happen?" Jack went on, trying to inspect her body.

"It was here. I, I was sleeping and I woke up and he was trying to hurt my baby" she explained. "He had this... this thing - like... like a needle. And he stabbed me with it." She lifted up her shirt but there was nothing there. "He was trying to hurt my baby" she insisted.

"It's okay. It's okay" Jack said trying to calm her down. She was still in hysterics.

"Does anything hurt?" I asked.

"No" she answered. "My baby" she whispered to her belly.

Everyone was searching the area for any sign of anything really. I wondered what they were really looking for. I got up to go get my water, but Jack grabbed my arm. "Becca, for tonight, you are glued to my side, do you hear me?" he said. "We don't know what's out there" I stopped and stared at him for a second, then sat back down.

Almost an hour later, I was still trying to calm down. Hurley came back to Jack with news about the search.

"We looked around the entire perimeter, man"

"Nobody saw or heard anything?" Jack asked.

"Uh-uh, nada. Everyone was asleep" Hurley answered. "So, I had an idea. I'm out here looking for some psycho with Scott and Steve, right? And I'm realizing who the hell are Scott and Steve?"

Jack's brow furrowed. "I'm not following you"

"Look, if I was a cop and some woman got attacked, we'd canvas, right? Knock on doors, find witnesses. But we don't even have doors" Hurley explained.

"Hurley, you're not helping me understand where you're. . ."

"Look, we don't know who's living here and who's still at the beach. I mean, we don't even know each other. My name isn't Hurley, its Hugo Reyes. Hurley's just a nickname I have, alright? Why? I'm not telling." He said. He sighed. "The point is we've got to find out who everyone is."

"You want to start a census" Jack said finally understanding.

"What's a census?"I asked.

"Like a registry" Jack answered.

"Yeah, a registry, you know names, what people look like, and who's related to whom." Hurley said. "I mean, we start laying down the law, maybe we'll stop attacking each other. It seems like someone's getting punched, or stabbed, or something every other day here. We've got to find out who did this to her."

"Right now, we need to concern ourselves with getting everyone to calm down." Jack said. "Then we'll worry about the census"

I sighed and hugged my knees to my chest. Somewhere out there was the man who attacked Claire. He could come back. He could attack someone else.

"Becca, maybe you should try to sleep" Jack suggested.

"I don't know if I can" I said looking around.

"Try" he said patting the ground next to him. I lay down and glanced up at Jack.

"Jack, if I fall asleep, don't leave ok?"

"Alright" he said. "I'm not moving"

I closed my eyes and attempted to get myself to go back to sleep. I was mildly surprised when I heard voices. Jack was talking to the man who went to get Claire water earlier.

"Ethan, did you see anything?" Jack whispered. "Anything at all?"

"No, Jack" he replied. "I didn't"

Jack sighed. "I'm not sure that Claire really was attacked"

"What do you mean? She made it all up?"

"No, she believes it" Jack said. "Pregnancy and the stress from the crash, it could cause nightmares"

Then I fell asleep. I heard no more and woke up in the morning. Jack had kept his promise and was still next to me. And was snoring. Again.

I sighed and sat up. It was going to rain soon. You could tell from the feeling in the air. Jack got up around ten minutes later. "Hey Jack?" I asked. "Are you going to the beach?"

"In a little bit, why?"

"I wanna go, but I don't want to walk alone" I said, sheepishly. "Not after last night"

"I think Hurley's goin right now" he said pointing. "You could go with him"

"Ok" I said glancing in the direction he was pointing. "See ya" I walked over towards Hurley and let him finish talking. When he was done I stared at his notebook. "What are you doing?"

"That census" he explained. "I'm asking everyone all the info I need"

"Oh" I said still looking curiously at the notebook.

"I still gotta ask you, and then I'm headed to the beach."

"Me?" I asked. "What do you need to know?"

"Just name, reason for travel, home address, that sort of thing" he said.

"Oh, um" I said. "Name: Rebecca Gallagher, I was in Sydney for school, and I have no home address"

"How do you have no address?"

"Foster kid" I explained. "I was going home to be moved to a new one, so I don't know what my address is right now"

"Oh, sorry, dude"

"It's fine" I sighed. "Happens more than you think" He started to walk away and I followed. "Mind if I come with you to the beach?"

"No, it's cool" he said.

"How many more people do you need?" I asked.

"A lot" he sighed. "I have somewhere around fifteen and there are forty-six of us"

"Ouch" I sighed. "Well, hopefully you get through it soon"

"Yeah" he said as we reached the beach. I stepped onto the sand and instantly felt at ease. The sand was warm and the sun beat down relentlessly onto the ocean. I sat down in the sand immediately and stared at the ocean. It was really inviting. The waves crashed in, and then they hit back out again. I wanted so much to go into the waves. Charlie came by me and sat down.

"Hey" I greeted him.

"Claire won't talk about it" he sighed. "She's being weird. I don't know what to do anymore"

"Charlie" I sighed putting my hand on his arm. "I know you don't want to hear this, but you can't do anything. Just wait. She'll come around"

"You're right" he said leaning back. "I didn't want to hear that"

"Sorry" I sighed. "But it's the truth"

"Yeah" he said.

I stared at the ocean a little while longer. "You know, we've been here almost a month and I never bothered to go swimming"

"Really?" he smiled amused. "That's just weird"

"Come with me then" I said getting up and taking my t-shirt off so that I was only in my camisole. Charlie stood up and took off his shirt. Wow, nice abs. I had on short shorts, so I just jumped into the water enthusiastically. It felt nice to have the water cover my body. It was cool, but not cold. It felt wonderful. I pulled up for air to see Charlie not far from me. I was only really in up to my waist, but the waves went right up over my head. I pushed my rampant hair out of my face. Charlie came up and I splashed him.

Laughing, he splashed me back. I dove under and pulled him down with me. My hair was spread out around my head. I came up gasping for air. We laughed at each other's faces and I went to go ashore. Charlie followed close behind. I lay on the sand, panting and laughing. "That was fun" I said.

He only nodded in response. We laid there for the longest time until the sun was high in the sky. I sat up and looked out at the horizon.

"Becca," he started. "You're a girl right? So you know what to do to, you know, make Claire feel better?"

"Charlie, if you really care about her, I would go talk to her. Just ask her what she wants."

"Ok" he said standing up. "Thanks, Becca"

And then he left me, going off to save his relationship with Claire. I had to say, I wasn't sure how I felt about the whole thing. Jack thought that she was only dreaming. That made more sense than the fact that someone own was coming into camp every night and attacking the pregnant person. I shuddered.

Basking in the sunlight until it was probably around three in the afternoon, I finally got up. My legs were itching for me to use them. I wasn't the kind of person who could stay sitting doing nothing for long periods of time. I stood up and began jogging nonchalantly down the beach. My feet patted the wet sand. My heart rate went faster and I was soon panting in the heat of the afternoon. I turned towards the jungle and ran past bushes, trees and the brush on the floor. It felt good to be moving again. I stopped when it began to hurt my chest. I panted and got back to the caves in record time since I ran most of it. Sayid was coming back into the camp at the exact same time I was. I gasped and ran to go meet him, but was stopped dead in my tracks. He was limping. He must have been hurt. I went towards Jack.

"Sayid?" he asked in confusion.

"Listen to me" he commanded wincing in pain and falling to the ground. "I found her, the French woman"

Jack knelt next to him. He glanced at Kate. "I need some water" He turned back to Sayid. "What happened?"

"The woman - on the island; I had to come back" he said holding his leg. "I had to come back. We're not alone"

Hurley came bursting onto the scene with his papers. "We've got a problem" he said approaching Jack. "The manifest, Jack, the census, the names of everyone who survived all 46 of us; I interviewed everyone. Here, at the beach, got their names. One of them, one of them isn't" Jack wasn't paying attention to him. "Jack!" he said to get his attention. "One of them isn't in the manifest. He wasn't on the plane"

"What?" I asked in confusion. Sayid passed out. I watched him breathe heavily. Jack stood up in a panic

"He wasn't on the plane" Hurley said again.

"Who wasn't on the plane?" Kate asked coming back with the water.

"Ethan, the Canadian guy, he is not on the passenger manifest" Hurley explained slightly out of breath. I thought about who Ethan was. I had just seen him not too long ago. How could he have not been on the plane?

"Well, where the hell is he?" Jack asked glancing around.

"I don't know" Hurley said. "I saw him yesterday, but now. . . "

Jack took a deep breath and yelled out: "Has anyone seen Ethan?"

Kat looked down at Sayid, who was still lying on the ground unconscious. "Sayid's leg…"

"Has anyone seen Ethan?" Jack asked again.

Michael came over in a nonchalant way, as though the whole world had not just gone topsy turvy. "Yeah, yeah; He went to go get some wood" he said pointing. "He took off on the path to the beach. Is he okay? What happened?"

"Where's Charlie?" Jack asked moving in that direction.

"What?" Kate asked still looking at Sayid.

"Where's Charlie?" he demanded.

My heart jumped. "He's with Claire"

"Huh?" asked Jack looking at me intently.

"He went after Claire" Locke answered coming up behind me. Jack took off in the direction of the beach. I wanted to follow, but didn't know what to do. I sighed and decided to simply wait it out. This had to be some kind of misunderstanding. How could someone be on the island if they weren't in the plane crash? Unless… unless they were already here.

I shuddered and sat down on a rock next to Sayid. We had to stop the bleeding. I knew enough form watching Jack how to at least slow the bleeding. I pulled off my belt and made a tourniquet on his upper leg. Kate came over poured water over it to clean it out. "Hold this" she said giving me some thread and a needle. I held it as she cleaned the wound and then took the stuff back. She sewed his leg and looked at me. "You can bandage it right?" she asked getting up. I nodded.

She up and left and I took her place in front of Sayid. I grabbed a bunch of the gauze and a piece of bandana that we had left. I wrapped his leg up tightly with the gauze ad then put the bandana over it, so that if it bled it would hold. I pinned it down and sat back to admire my work. I had to admit, if I ever considered being a doctor, I would be excellent at the bandaging part. Sayid stirred slightly. I watched as he stumbled to awake. I grabbed a bottle of water for him and waited.

He awoke a few minutes later. I smiled and handed him some water. He took it happily and downed half of it before coming up for air. 'Thank you" he said. 'Where is Jack?"

"He went off to look for Claire and Ethan" I said. "You met the French woman?"

"Yes" he said trying to get up. I offered him my hand to help. He took it and stood up straight.

"How do you know we are not alone?" I asked. "Other than the French woman I mean"

"She told me" he said simply. "And I believe her"

"Why?"

"Because I heard them; Whispers" he said coldly.

"You hear them too?" I asked in shock.

He gave me a panicked look. Walt came up and pulled on my arm. "Come here for a second."

I looked back at Sayid and went with him. "See dad," he said. "I and Becca could take Vincent, and he could sniff something that belonged to Charlie" he said. "And I can help"

"I said no, man." Michael replied. "Hey, Locke; Hey, look, you know, a lot of us don't just want to sit here waiting for news."

"Thanks, but we're set" Locke said looking down at me and Walt. "Anyone else will just slow us down"

"Okay. Maybe I'll just put together another party" Michael mused embarrassed.

"Good idea. We're going north. I suggest you go south" Locke said looking at his knife now.

Walt looked up at his dad as if to say I told you so "Come on" Michael said pulling him away. I had to admit, I felt bad for the pair of them. They didn't have that good of a relationship.

I paced around for awhile, not really knowing what to do with myself. Everyone I cared about was hurt, lost or would be hurt. I was in a state of pure panic.

Walt was also wandering aimlessly. I went towards him. "Wanna explore a little?" I asked giving him a semi smile.

"Sure" he replied grabbing his dog. We set off to the left towards the beach. We spotted Sawyer walking around.

"Sawyer" I called. "Did you hear about Charlie and Claire?" I asked. "They were taken"

"Who got taken by what?" he asked confused.

"Charlie and Claire, they think Ethan took them" Walt said.

"Ethan took them, eh?" he said rolling his eyes.

"Yeah" I answered with Walt in unison.

"Took them why?" he asked. "And who the hell is Ethan?"

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"He wasn't on the list thing, the manifest." Walt said.

"Ever think he might have lied about his name?" he asked.

"It's stupid to lie about your name." Walt accused.

"Alrighty, Tattoo, where do you think Ethan came from?" he asked Walt.

"Maybe he was already on the island, before we were."

"You got yourself one hell of an imagination, kid" he laughed.

"There could be lots of other people on the island." Walt went on.

"Yeah, it's not like we explored all of it" I added.

"So a tribe of evil natives planted a ringer in the camp to kidnap a pregnant girl and a reject from VH-1 has-beens" he said. "Yeah, fiendishly clever" He sarcastically added. "And why am I getting the evening news from a 6 and ten year old?"

"I'm 10 and she's thirteen"

"Okay, then it must be true" He acknowledged.

"If you don't believe me, ask Sayid. He said we're not alone" Walt said simply turning away.

Sawyer turned back to look at us. "Sayid's back?"

I nodded turning to follow Walt. We went back into the caves, now bored with the whole exploring thing. There was nothing to take my mind off of the fact that Charlie and Claire could be gone. Forever.


	11. Chapter 11 Search

**Sorry it took me so long to update! Enjoy!**

**Chapter Eleven**

_Search_

It was getting dark and Jack and the rest of them still weren't back yet. I was now really freaking out. What if they were hurt? What if Ethan really was evil and took them all? What if they were dead?

I was pacing in circles. This was going to drive me mad. Finally, when the sun had almost completely set, Jack came walking back to camp. I ran up to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. "You're ok" I mused happily.

"Yeah" he said with a small smile.

"What's wrong?" I asked my smile fading.

"We found Charlie" he said. "But no Claire"

"Oh" I said letting go of him. "Well, we'll find her right?"

"Yeah" he said. "Of course we will"

I noticed that when he said that he wasn't looking at me. I wanted to cry. Claire was the first person I really talked to on the island. She couldn't just be gone.

Charlie came onto the scene. "Oh," I cried in relief. "Oh, Charlie! You're okay!" I hugged him fiercely, then pulled back and looked in his eyes. They were cold. "Charlie," I said, shaking him. He finally stopped looking through me, and looked at me. "_Are_ you okay?" Charlie nodded. The look on his face made me want to cry, but I didn't. Not yet. "At least you _did_ something. All I could do was… wait." I hugged Charlie again, then got up and left.

I slept and woke up to Jack arguing with Sayid. "Sayid, I need you to take me back to the French woman, Rousseau. Claire's still out there. Now, Rousseau mentioned that there are others on this island…" Jack said forming a plan in his mind. I yawned and sat up.

"Her mind is gone" Sayid insisted.

"You heard them yourself" Jack went on.

"I don't know what I heard"

I started, confused. "You said that when you. . ."

"The wind, Jack" he said looking directly at me. "It was the wind playing tricks"

"Okay, then, what about the papers that you took from her - the documents, the maps. I mean, isn't there anything here that. . ."

Sayid cut him off. "I'm skilled at mathematics and decryption, but these equations are beyond anything I've ever seen. There are these notes in French accompanying some of the maps and diagrams. If I could translate them I might be able to make sense of it, but. . ."

"What?" Jack asked.

"Perhaps some things are best left untranslated" he said coldly.

"Yeah?" he asked pointing at Charlie. "Maybe you should tell him that."

I slept most of the next day. When I was up however, I strolled around the beach and did absolutely nothing. I was too worried about Claire and Charlie. He was still acting weird. He had almost died the day before. Sawyer was sitting outside his tent trying to open a case. I watched him for a moment. He slammed his hands on the case. "Son of a bitch!"

Michael passed by with a wheelbarrow. "You're wasting your time, man. If you pick the lock on a Halliburton, I'll put you on my back and fly us to LA"

"You better find yourself a runway, daddy, Cuz there isn't a lock I can't pick" Sawyer said.

I looked at Michael. "What's so special about a Halliburton?"

Hurley passed by."What's he trying to do?"

"Pick the lock on a Halliburton" Michael replied with a look of amusement in his face.

"Good luck" Hurley said laughing and walking off.

"Seriously, what is a Halliburton?" I asked.

"It's pretty much the most indestructible case they make" Michael replied. He turned back to Sawyer. "The only way you're going to open that case is with pure force, man; Impact velocity."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You've got to hit it with something hard, like a sledgehammer. Or the axe"

Sawyer gave an agitated sigh. "Dimples go get the axe" he said.

"You could at least say please" I mumbled going to find it. I looked where we normally kept it by the tables, but it wasn't there. I went up and down the beach looking for whoever had it. I stopped at Sayid. "Hey have you seen the axe?" I asked.

"What do you need the axe for?"

"It's not for me, it's for Sawyer" I said. "So have you seen it?"

"No, I'm sorry I have not" he replied with a sullen look on his face.

"What's wrong?" I asked with concern.

"I need someone to translate these papers" he said. "Can you read French, perhaps?"

"No, I'm sorry I can't" I sighed, "And Shannon?"

"She won't even try" he said.

"Just wait. I'm sure she'll change her mind" I encouraged.

"I do hope so" he replied going off. I went back to Sawyer.

"What took you so damn long?" he snapped.

"Couldn't find it" I replied. "Someone must have it"

"Son of a bitch" he swore, "Now what?"

"I would take Michael's advice" I said nodding.

"Well aren't you so smart"

"I am" I replied getting up to leave. "Why do you want that case open so bad anyway?"

"Just do" he shot back.

"Well good luck with that" I said leaving.

The day after I went to the beach to get my mind off of Claire, I was surprised to see Shannon with Sayid. They were bent over some maps that Sayid had taken from a French woman in the jungle.

As I got closer, I could tell that both of them were frustrated. The girl was struggling to translate the maps he got when he was with the French woman, until Sayid said something to make her leave in a huff. I waited until she left, then went by him. "What was that?" I asked, sitting on the corner of his table.

"Shannon," he replied. I noticed how short he was. I could tell he was angry.

"You gotta give the girl some credit," I began. "I mean, she was trying pretty hard to translate those papers. Maybe what was written was hard to translate." Sayid was glaring at me, and I shrugged. "Just an idea," I said.

I hopped off the table and went back to the caves. The rest of my day was spent writing in my journal. I had been slacking on it lately. Not that I blamed myself, I had been in a plane crash after all. I spent more time with Sayid and Shannon the next day. Just as I had noticed the chemistry between Charlie and Claire, I saw Sayid and Shannon warm up to each other. They had light, easy conversations, and they seemed to enjoy each other's company. Shannon left to go do something or other, and I nudged Sayid with my elbow once she'd gone. "Yeah?" I asked, motioning to Shannon.

"Yeah?" Sayid gave me a weary look.

I laughed and got up to leave. He liked her and I could tell. I walked down the beach noting everyone I saw. Charlie was still acting funny about Claire's kidnapping. Not that I blamed him.

Kate was going around the beach eating a papaya. She was holding the seeds in her hands. "What are you doing with those?" I asked motioning towards her hand.

"Sun made a garden" she smiled. "Wanna see?" she asked motioning at the jungle.

"Maybe later" I replied shaking my head.

I went towards Sawyer's tent on the beach. "Hey" I said with a small smile.

"Well, hello Shortcake" he said, his face lighting up. "What's up?"

"I'm bored" I sighed sitting on the ground.

"And this is my problem because?" he sighed looking up from his book.

"It's not" I sighed. "But you asked." He looked at me with contempt.

"What do you want me to do about it?" he asked.

"I don't know" I sighed lying back in the sand. I was annoyed with the world. Everyone was so concerned with the maps and moving there things up the beach because of the rising tide, they had forgotten about Claire. She was still missing, and yet no one was out looking for her.

"Then go away" he said, looking back at his book.

I sat up and sighed. "Can't you ever be nice?"

"I always nice" he smiled. I punched his arm. "Someone's touchy today" he laughed.

"Shut it" I growled walking away. I was being moody. Not that I would ever apologize for it. Jack came up to me, with an inquiring look on his face.

"Have you seen Locke or Boone?" he asked me. I shook my head. "I haven't seen them for awhile."

"They've been hunting from sun up to sun down" I said. "Gone all day"

Sayid came up, holding his map papers. "Jack look at this"

Jack looked over at him. He was holding the papers out so Jack could see them. I came over and stared at them too. I never heard what Sayid figured out. "Once I realized these equations were coordinates, latitude and longitude, I assumed the French woman was trying to determine the location of the island. But it was incomplete, the notations fragmented." He pointed.

"Except for the fish song" Shannon added, almost proud of herself.

"MmHmm" Sayid hummed in agreement.

"The what?" Jack asked confused.

Sayid put the papers together so that three lines met. "But when I laid the pages down like this, I realized it wasn't showing the location of the island. I think it's a location on the island. Specifically, here."

Jack looked quizzically at the maps. "So where are we in relation to the triangle?"

"Well, the map is hardly in scale, so I don't know."

"We're not even sure it's a map of this island, are we?" Jack asked shaking his head in dismay.

"We're not, no." Sayid replied. "But this may be the transmitter sending out the distress call and its power source."

Michael joined our confused little circle of discussion. "What are we talking about doing now?" he asked. "Looking for another excuse to get chased down and killed by whatever lives in the jungle? Guys, we can't keep doing this. Building water filtration systems? Playing golf? Making a sweet little home here? We need to get off this island."

Shannon looked at him, annoyed. "You think any of us wants to be here?"

"No, but I don't think anyone wants to get off as much as I do right now."

"You're wrong about that" I mumbled to myself.

"So, are you suggesting something?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, we build a raft." Michael replied.

"A raft?" Sayid asked in shock.

"Look, don't say it like that, man. We need a little optimism here, okay? And we've got to do something because, let's be honest, no one's coming." He said. What happened to the optimism? I thought sarcastically. "Those seats we took off the fuselage, they float. And we've got an axe, and a whole bunch of trees, bamboo. We can do this." He added

"The chances of surviving the rough waters? The odds of finding a shipping lane?" Sayid questioned.

"And I get really sea-sick" Shannon added.

"You know what? Great. Stay here. Grow old. Good luck to you, but I'm doing this. My son and I are leaving. Anybody that wants to help us build, God bless you." He said stalking off in anger.

I watched him walk away, not knowing whether I wanted to help him or not. It was a pretty good idea, I had to admit. However, like Sayid said, we had no idea where we were, let alone if any boats were around to help us out. So, I guess I didn't know what to believe.

Hours later, I saw Walt walking straight into the jungle as though he was running from something. I followed, curiosity getting the better of me. "Where are you going?" I called to him. He must not have heard me though, because he just kept going. I turned around and went back to the beach. He would be fine.

Even later, Michael came up to me, with a frantic look in his face. "Have you seen Walt?" he asked.

Oh shit.

"He went into the jungle a little while ago" I replied, now feeling bad. What if he was dead or hurt or got mulled by polar bears? Michael started at a mad dash for the jungle. I followed. "Want me to help you look for him?" I asked.

"No" he replied. "You go back to the beach. We don't need anyone else getting lost"

I turned around, sighing to myself. I was still treated like a child. I guess I was letting myself be though. Or, at least, I wasn't doing anything about it. I sat down next to Sawyer again. I seemed to talk to him when I needed to say something that I knew no one else would listen too. "Their building a raft" I stated.

"A raft?" he asked, his eyebrows rising.

I shrugged my shoulders. "That's what Michael said" Charlie came strutting up to Sawyer in anger. Charlie stood next to him and said, "Where's Claire's diary?"

Sawyer lifted up a little black book, grinning widely. "Right here," he said. Charlie grabbed for it, but Sawyer yanked it back out of his reach. "Ah, ah, ah! You gotta give me something in return."

"Give it to me," Charlie growled. Sawyer shook his head, the smug look still on his face. Whenever I wanted something from Sawyer and he was being stupid about it, I wanted to punch him. Charlie took it a step up from just wanting to. He pulled back his arm, and clocked Sawyer a good one across the jaw. Charlie grabbed the diary and stormed off.

At first I was a little worried about Sawyer, but then I couldn't help but laugh. Kate gave Sawyer a disgusted look and left. "I'm glad this is entertainment for you," Sawyer hissed, rubbing his jaw.

I covered my mouth, snickering. "You got punched… I laughed. "Oh God, I wanted to do that to you sometimes." I shook with laughter. "Okay, um… do you want me to get you something?" I asked. Sawyer pointed to a black bag in the corner of the tent, and I pawed through it. I was surprised to find an ice pack.

I handed it to him, still grinning. Sawyer sighed at me. "I'm sorry, it's just…" I began, but I couldn't stop laughing. "Okay, I'll stop. Promise." I went to sit behind him on a crate.

"So do you think it's a good idea?" I asked.

"Do I think what is a good idea?" He asked with a sneer.

"The raft" I sighed, annoyed.

"Well hell yeah" he spoke up. "We gotta get off this rock somehow now don't we Blondie?"

I nodded. He went back to reading so I left. I went to the kitchen then made my way back to the caves so that I wouldn't have to walk back later in the dark. I arrived and saw Charlie reading Claire's diary. "What are you doing?" I asked. He waved his hand shrugging me off. I still stood, reading over his shoulder. "You're reading her diary?" I asked. "Nosy"

He stood and went over towards Jack and Sayid. "Jack. Sayid. You have to hear this"

"What is that?" Jack asked.

"It's Claire's, her diary" Charlie replied.

"You're reading her diary?" Sayid asked accusingly.

"Yeah, I know, I'm bloody scum" Charlie said, dismissing the comments. "Just listen to this "I had that weird dream again, the one with the black rock I can't get away from. I try to leave it but it won't let me.""

"Black rock?" Sayid asked.

Jack gave him a dismissing look. "It's just dreams, Charlie"

Charlie shook his head. "No, Sayid mentioned Black Rock before" he pointed out.

"The French woman said something about her team returning from the Black Rock" Sayid said happily. "The triangle on the map. Maybe it's the triangle on the map"

Charlie was equally excited. "Maybe it's where Claire was taken. Maybe she's there?'

"Maybe. Charlie, we all want to find Claire, but there's no sense going out into the jungle in the middle of the night" Jack said, still not going with the idea.

"But, what if she's there, Jack?" he asked. "We have a clue, we should use it"

"Alright, we will" Jack said. "In daylight"

I had to agree with Jack as much as I wanted to go after Claire too. Jack looked at me, and smiled. I gave him a small smile back. "How have you been, Becca?" he said. "Haven't seen you around in awhile"

"I've been hanging at the beach" I said softly. "The jungle creeps me out. With Claire gone missing and…" I stopped.

"And?" he asked.

I gave him a worried look. "It's nothing" I sighed. It's not like I could just say, 'hey, I hear voices in the jungle and saw my dead mother'. Yeah, that wouldn't go over well.

"No, Bex. You can tell me"

"Jack" I sighed. "It's nothing, I promise"

"Alright" he sighed. "But you can talk to me if you ever need to"

"Thanks Jack" I said.

"Becca, maybe you should head to bed" he suggested lightly.

"Ok" I nodded. I lay down in my normal spot close to where Jack laid. I wasn't too tired, but nevertheless, I felt my eye lids drooping down. Man, was I tired. I closed my eyes and fell asleep super fast.

A voice screamed in the middle of the night. "Over here, Jack!" it yelled. I sat up, still groggy.

"Where's Jack?" someone asked. I was glancing around trying to see where these voices were coming from. Charlie walked in a certain direction so I guessed that that was where they were coming from. I followed swiftly. "We need the doctor" Locke said.

"He's right there. Right there" said another voice from a person I couldn't see.

"What happened?" Charlie asked.

People were still yelling for Jack, as he came running up to Locke who was coming through the brush. Locke had someone in his arms. "Claire?" Charlie asked.


End file.
